The Greek Anthology contains 151 epigrams by Palladas, the late 4th-5th century Alexandrian poet. In his time, Christian mobs pulled down the city’s monuments and temples and killed intellectuals and writers (e.g. Hypatia) in order to sweep away the culture, science and learning they identified as pagan.

The epigrams reflect what Palladas saw around him. Bitter, mocking, depressed, at once defeated and defiant, often quite funny, they are brilliant in an uncomfortable way.

My versions register what I think Palladas meant to write, but a reader should not confuse them with translations in the strict sense nor imagine they are the work of a scholar. These are short (sometimes not so short) poems of mine that parallel what I find in his poems. Read a few of them at annexpress.org

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