Palladas

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Who is Palladas?

Palladas was a Greek poet, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. All that is known about this poet has been deduced from his 151 epigrams preserved in the Greek Anthology.. His poems describe the persona of a pagan schoolteacher resigned to life in a Christian city, and bitter about his wife to the point of misogyny.

One of the epigrams attributed to him on the authority of Maximus Planudes is a eulogy on the celebrated Hypatia, daughter of Theon of Alexandria, whose death took place in 415. Another was, according to a scholium in the Palatine Manuscript, written in the reign of the joint emperors Valentinian and Valens. A third epigram on the destruction of Beirut, offers no certain date.

A recent article by K.W. Wilkinson suggests an alternative chronology dating Palladas' activity to the age of Constantine.

An anonymous epigram speaks of Palladas as having a high poetical reputation. However, Isaac Casaubon dismisses him in two contemptuous words as versificator insulsissimus. John William Mackail concurs with Casaubon, writing that "this is true of a great part of his work, and would perhaps be true of it all but for the savage indignation which kindles his verse, not into the flame of poetry, but to a dull red heat."

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Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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