Volume 2, Slice 2 Part 11 (1/2)

ANTHEMIUS, Greek mathematician and architect, who produced, under the patronage of Justinian (A.D. 532), the original and daring plans for the church of St Sophia in Constantinople, which strikingly displayed at once his knowledge and his ignorance. He was one of five brothers--the sons of Stepha.n.u.s, a physician of Tralles--who were all more or less eminent in their respective departments. Dioscorus followed his father's profession in his native place; Alexander became at Rome one of the most celebrated medical men of his time; Olympius was deeply versed in Roman jurisprudence; and Metrodorus was one of the distinguished grammarians of the great Eastern capital. It is related of Anthemius that, having a quarrel with his next-door neighbour Zeno, he annoyed him in two ways.

First, he made a number of leathern tubes the ends of which he contrived to fix among the joists and flooring of a fine upper-room in which Zeno entertained his friends, and then subjected it to a miniature earthquake by sending steam through the tubes. Secondly, he simulated thunder and lightning, the latter by flas.h.i.+ng in Zeno's eyes an intolerable light from a slightly hollowed mirror. Certain it is that he wrote a treatise on burning-gla.s.ses. A fragment of this was published under the t.i.tle [Greek: Peri paradoxon maechonaematon] by L. Dupuy in 1777, and also appeared in 1786 in the forty-second volume of the _Hist. de l'Acad. des Inscr_.; A. Westermann gave a revised edition of it in his [Greek: Paradoxographoi] (_Scriptores rerum mirabilium Graeci_), 1839. In the course of constructions for surfaces to reflect to one and the same point (1) all rays in whatever direction pa.s.sing through another point, (2) a set of parallel rays, Anthemius a.s.sumes a property of an ellipse not found in Apollonius (the equality of the angles subtended at a focus by two tangents drawn from a point), and (having given the focus and a double ordinate) he uses the focus and directrix to obtain any number of points on a parabola--the first instance on record of the practical use of the directrix.

On Anthemius generally, see Procopius, _De Aedific_. i. 1; Agathias, _Hist_. v. 6-9; _Gibbon's Decline and Fall_, cap. xl. (T. L. H.)

ANTHESTERIA, one of the four Athenian festivals in honour of Dionysus, held annually for three days (11th-13th) in the month of Anthesterion (February-March). The object of the festival was to celebrate the maturing of the wine stored at the previous vintage, and the beginning of spring. On the first day, called _Pithoigia_ (opening of the casks), libations were offered from the newly opened casks to the G.o.d of wine, all the household, including servants and slaves, joining in the festivities. The rooms and the drinking vessels in them were adorned with spring flowers, as were also the children over three years of age.

The second day, named _Choes_ (feast of beakers), was a time of merrymaking. The people dressed themselves gaily, some in the disguise of the mythical personages in the suite of Dionysus, and paid a round of visits to their acquaintances. Drinking clubs met to drink off matches, the winner being he who drained his cup most rapidly. Others poured libations on the tombs of deceased relatives. On the part of the state this day was the occasion of a peculiarly solemn and secret ceremony in one of the sanctuaries of Dionysus in the Lenaeum, which for the rest of the year was closed. The basilissa (or basilinna), wife of the archon basileus for the time, went through a ceremony of marriage to the wine G.o.d, in which she was a.s.sisted by fourteen Athenian matrons, called _geraerae_, chosen by the basileus and sworn to secrecy. The days on which the Pithoigia and Choes were celebrated were both regarded as [Greek: apophrades] (_nefasti_) and [Greek: miarai] (”defiled”), necessitating expiatory libations; on them the souls of the dead came up from the underworld and walked abroad; people chewed leaves of whitethorn and besmeared their doors with tar to protect themselves from evil. But at least in private circles the festive character of the ceremonies predominated. The third day was named _Chytri_ (feast of pots, from [Greek: chytros], a pot), a festival of the dead. Cooked pulse was offered to Hermes, in his capacity of a G.o.d of the lower world, and to the souls of the dead. Although no performances were allowed at the theatre, a sort of rehearsal took place, at which the players for the ensuing dramatic festival were selected.

The name Anthesteria, according to the account of it given above, is usually connected with [Greek: anthos] (”flower,” or the ”bloom” of the grape), but A.W. Verrall (_Journal of h.e.l.lenic Studies_, xx., 1900, p.

115) explains it as a feast of ”revocation” (from [Greek: anathessasthai], to ”pray back” or ”up”), at which the ghosts of the dead were recalled to the land of the living (_cp._ the Roman _mundus patet_). J.E. Harrison (_ibid_. 100, 109, and _Prolegomena_), regarding the Anthesteria as primarily a festival of all souls, the object of which was the expulsion of ancestral ghosts by means of placation, explains [Greek: pithoigia] as the feast of the opening of the graves ([Greek: pithos] meaning a large urn used for burial purposes), [Greek: choes] as the day of libations, and [Greek: chutroi] as the day of the grave-holes (not ”pots,” which is [Greek: chutrai]), in point of time really anterior to the [Greek: pithoigia]. E. Rohde and M.P. Nilsson, however, take the [Greek: chutroi] to mean ”water vessels,” and connect the ceremony with the Hydrophoria, a libation festival to propitiate the dead who had perished in the flood of Deucalion.

See F. Hiller von Gartringen in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_ (s.v.); J. Girard in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquites_ (s.v. ”Dionysia”); and F.A. Voigt in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ (s.v. ”Dionysos”); J.E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_ (1903); M.P. Nilsson, _Studia de Dionysiis Atticis_ (1900) and _Griechische Feste_ (1906); G.F. Schomann, _Griechische Alterthumer_, ii. (ed. J.H. Lipsius, 1902), p. 516; A.

Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen_ (1898); E. Rohde, _Psyche_ (4th ed., 1907), p. 237.

ANTHIM THE IBERIAN, a notable figure in the ecclesiastical history of Rumania. A Georgian by birth, he came to Rumania early in the second half of the 17th century, as a simple monk. He became bishop of Ramnicu in 1705, and in 1708 archbishop of Walachia. Taking a leading part in the political movements of the time, he came into conflict with the newly appointed Greek hospodars, and was exiled to Rumelia. But on his crossing the Danube in 1716 he was thrown into the water and drowned, as it is alleged, at the instigation of the prince of Walachia. He was a man of great talents and spoke and wrote many Oriental and European languages. Though a foreigner, he soon acquired a thorough knowledge of Rumanian, and was instrumental in helping to introduce that language into the church as its official language. He was a master printer and an artist of the first order. He cut the wood blocks for the books which he printed in Tirgovishtea, Ramnicu, Snagov and Bucharest. He was also the first to introduce Oriental founts of type into Rumania, and he printed there the first Arabic missal for the Christians of the East (Ramnicu, 1702). He also trained Georgians in the art of printing, and cut the type with which under his pupil Mihail Ishtvanovitch they printed the first Georgian Gospels (Tiflis, 1709). A man of great oratorical power, Anthim delivered a series of sermons (Didahii), and some of his pastoral letters are models of style and of language as well as of exact and beautiful printing. He also completed a whole _corpus_ of lectionaries, missals, gospels, &c.

See M. Gaster, _Chrestomathie roumaine_ (1881), and ”Gesch. d.

rumanischen Litteratur,” in Grober, _Grundriss d. rom. Philologie_, vol. ii. (1899); and E. Picot, _Notice sur Anthim d'Ivir_ (Paris, 1886). (M. G.)

ANTHOLOGY. The term ”anthology,” literally denoting a garland or collection of flowers, is figuratively applied to any selection of literary beauties, and especially to that great body of fugitive poetry, comprehending about 4500 pieces, by upwards of 300 writers, which is commonly known as the _Greek Anthology_.

_Literary History of the Greek Anthology._--The art of occasional poetry had been cultivated in Greece from an early period,--less, however, as the vehicle of personal feeling, than as the recognized commemoration of remarkable individuals or events, on sepulchral monuments and votive offerings: Such compositions were termed epigrams, i.e. inscriptions.

The modern use of the word is a departure from the original sense, which simply indicated that the composition was intended to be engraved or inscribed. Such a composition must necessarily be brief, and the restraints attendant upon its publication concurred with the simplicity of Greek taste in prescribing conciseness of expression, pregnancy of meaning, purity of diction and singleness of thought, as the indispensable conditions of excellence in the epigrammatic style. The term was soon extended to any piece by which these conditions were fulfilled. The transition from the monumental to the purely literary character of the epigram was favoured by the exhaustion of more lofty forms of poetry, the general increase, from the general diffusion of culture, of accomplished writers and tasteful readers, but, above all, by the changed political circ.u.mstances of the times, which induced many who would otherwise have engaged in public affairs to addict themselves to literary pursuits. These causes came into full operation during the Alexandrian era, in which we find every description of epigrammatic composition perfectly developed. About 60 B.C., the sophist and poet, Meleager of Gadara, undertook to combine the choicest effusions of his predecessors into a single body of fugitive poetry. Collections of monumental inscriptions, or of poems on particular subjects, had previously been formed by Polemon Periegetes and others; but Meleager first gave the principle a comprehensive application. His selection, compiled from forty-six of his predecessors, and including numerous contributions of his own, was ent.i.tled _The Garland_ ([Greek: Stephanos]); and in an introductory poem each poet is compared to some flower, fancifully deemed appropriate to his genius. The arrangement of his collection was alphabetical, according to the initial letter of each epigram.

In the age of the emperor Tiberius (or Trajan, according to others) the work of Meleager was continued by another epigrammatist, Philippus of Thessalonica, who first employed the term anthology. His collection, which included the compositions of thirteen writers subsequent to Meleager, was also arranged alphabetically, and contained an introductory poem. It was of inferior quality to Meleager's. Somewhat later, under Hadrian, another supplement was formed by the sophist Diogenia.n.u.s of Heracleia (2nd century A.D.), and Strato of Sardis compiled his elegant but tainted [Greek: Mousa Paidike] (Musa Puerilis) from his productions and those of earlier writers. No further collection from various sources is recorded until the time of Justinian, when epigrammatic writing, especially of an amatory character, experienced a great revival at the hands of Agathias of Myrina, the historian, Paulus Silentiarius, and their circle. Their ingenious but mannered productions were collected by Agathias into a new anthology, ent.i.tled _The Circle_ ([Greek: Kyklos]); it was the first to be divided into books, and arranged with reference to the subjects of the pieces.

These and other collections made during the middle ages are now lost.

The partial incorporation of them into a single body, cla.s.sified according to the contents in 15 books, was the work of a certain Constantinus Cephalas, whose name alone is preserved in the single MS.

of his compilation extant, but who probably lived during the temporary revival of letters under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, at the beginning of the 10th century. He appears to have merely made excerpts from the existing anthologies, with the addition of selections from Lucillius, Palladas, and other epigrammatists, whose compositions had been published separately. His arrangement, to which we shall have to recur, is founded on a principle of cla.s.sification, and nearly corresponds to that adopted by Agathias. His principle of selection is unknown; it is only certain that while he omitted much that he should have retained, he has preserved much that would otherwise have perished. The extent of our obligations may be ascertained by a comparison between his anthology and that of the next editor, the monk Maximus Planudes (A.D. 1320), who has not merely grievously mutilated the anthology of Cephalas by omissions, but has disfigured it by interpolating verses of his own. We are, however, indebted to him for the preservation of the epigrams on works of art, which seem to have been accidentally omitted from our only transcript of Cephalas.

The Planudean (in seven books) was the only recension of the anthology known at the revival of cla.s.sical literature, and was first published at Florence, by Ja.n.u.s Lascaris, in 1494. It long continued to be the only accessible collection, for although the Palatine MS., the sole extant copy of the anthology of Cephalas, was discovered in the Palatine library at Heidelberg, and copied by Saumaise (Salmasius) in 1606, it was not published until 1776, when it was included in Brunck's _a.n.a.lecta Veterum Poetarum Graecorum_. The MS. itself had frequently changed its quarters. In 1623, having been taken in the sack of Heidelberg in the Thirty Years' War, it was sent with the rest of the Palatine Library to Rome as a present from Maximilian I. of Bavaria to Gregory XV., who had it divided into two parts, the first of which was by far the larger; thence it was taken to Paris in 1797.

In 1816 it went back to Heidelberg, but in an incomplete state, the second part remaining at Paris. It is now represented at Heidelberg by a photographic facsimile. Brunck's edition was superseded by the standard one of Friedrich Jacobs (1794-1814, 13 vols.), the text of which was reprinted in a more convenient form in 1813-1817, and occupies three pocket volumes in the Tauchnitz series of the cla.s.sics.

The best edition for general purposes is perhaps that of Dubner in Didot's _Bibliotheca_ (1864-1872), which contains the Palatine Anthology, the epigrams of the Planudean Anthology not comprised in the former, an appendix of pieces derived from other sources, copious notes selected from all quarters, a literal Latin prose translation by Boissonade, Bothe, and Lapaume and the metrical Latin versions of Hugo Grotius. A third volume, edited by E. Cougny, was published in 1890.

The best edition of the Planudean Anthology is the splendid one by van Bosch and van Lennep (1795-1822). There is also a complete edition of the text by Stadlmuller in the Teubner series.

_Arrangement._--The Palatine MS., the archetype of the present text, was transcribed by different persons at different times, and the actual arrangement of the collection does not correspond with that signalized in the index. It is as follows: Book 1. Christian epigrams; 2.

Christodorus's description of certain statues; 3. Inscriptions in the temple at Cyzicus; 4. The prefaces of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias to their respective collections; 5. Amatory epigrams; 6. Votive inscriptions; 7. Epitaphs; 8. The epigrams of Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus; 9.

Rhetorical and ill.u.s.trative epigrams; 10. Ethical pieces; 11. Humorous and convivial; 12. Strata's Musa Puerilis; 13. Metrical curiosities; 14.

Puzzles, enigmas, oracles; 15. Miscellanies. The epigrams on works of art, as already stated, are missing from the _Codex Palatinus_, and must be sought in an appendix of epigrams only occurring in the Planudean Anthology. The epigrams. .h.i.therto recovered from ancient monuments and similar sources form appendices in the second and third volumes of Dubner's edition.