the style and contents of his epigrams seems to have lived about the
time of Hadrian, but may possibly be an Augustan poet. Strato is
mentioned by Diogenes Laertius,[18] who wrote at the beginning of the
third century; and his own epigram on the physician Artemidorus
Capito,[19] who was a contemporary of Hadrian, fixes his approximate
date.

How far we possess Strato's collection in its original form it is
impossible to decide. Jacobs says he cannot attempt to determine
whether Cephalas took it in a lump or made a selection from it, or
whether he kept the order of the epigrams. As they stand they have no
ascertainable principle of arrangement, alphabetical or of author or
of subject. The collection consists of two hundred and fifty-nine
epigrams, of which ninety-four are by Strato himself and sixty by
Meleager. It has either been carelessly formed, or suffered from
interpolation afterwards. Some of the epigrams are foreign to the
subject of the collection. Six are on women;[20] and four of these are
on women whose names end in the diminutive form, Phanion, Callistion,
etc., which suggests the inference that they were inserted at a late
date and by an ignorant transcriber who confused these with masculine
forms. For all the epigrams of Strato's collection the Anthology is
the only source.

In the three hundred years between Strato and Agathias no new
Anthology is known to have been made.

The celebrated Byzantine poet and historian Agathias, son of Mamnonius
of Myrina, came to Constantinople as a young man to study law in the
year 554. In the preface to his History he tells us that he formed a
new collection of recent and contemporary epigrams previously