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Christian mobs destroyed the monuments and temples of the city and murdered intellectuals and writers (most famously Hypatia) in an attempt to eradicate the culture, philosophy, science and mathematical learning they identified as “pagan.”

Palladas’ epigrams reflect these events: they are bitter, mocking, both defeated and defiant, depressed, and sarcastic. Often quite funny as well, they are brilliant in an uncomfortable way.

Although my versions of his epigrams do register what I think Palladas meant to write, a reader should neither confuse them with translations in the strict sense nor imagine them as the work of a scholar. They must stand or fall as what they are – short (and sometimes not so short) poems I’ve written that parallel what I find in his work.

For the Greek text I rely on the Loeb Library. I also use its late Victorian English versions, along with other translations and scholarly commentary, as trots.