unpublished,[21] in seven books, entitled {Kuklos}. His proem to the
Cyclus is extant.[22] It consists of forty-six iambics followed by
eighty-seven hexameters, and describes the collection under the
symbolism no longer of a flower-garden, but of a feast to which
different persons bring contributions ({ou stepsanos alla sunagoge}),
a metaphor which is followed out with unrelenting tediousness. The
piece is not worth transcription here. He says he includes his own
epigrams. After a panegyric on the greatness of the empire of
Justinian, and the foreign and domestic peace of his reign, he ends by
describing the contents of the collection. Book I. contains
dedications in the ancient manner, {os proterois makaressin aneimena}:
for Agathias was himself a Christian, and indeed the old religion had
completely died out even before Justinian closed the schools of
Athens. Book II. contains epigrams on statues, pictures, and other
works of art; Book III., sepulchral epigrams; Book IV., epigrams "on
the manifold paths of life, and the unstable scales of fortune,"
corresponding to the section of {Protreptika} in the Palatine
Anthology; Book V., irrisory epigrams; Book VI. amatory epigrams; and
Book VII., convivial epigrams. Agathias, so far as we know, was the
first who made this sort of arrangement under subjects, which, with
modifications, has generally been followed afterwards. His Anthology
is lost; and probably perished soon after that of Cephalas was made.

Constantinus Cephalas, a grammarian unknown except from the Palatine
MS., began again from the beginning. 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