Epigram

Ancient Greek

The epigram originated in Greece as a form for inscription on a monument or grave, hence the word 'epigram' from the Greek words meaning 'to write on'. Epigrams were thus much shorter than lyric poetry which developed from forms designed for performance accompanied by musical instruments.

One such monument inscription is Simonides's epitaph for the Spartan dead after the Battle of Thermopylae,which can be found in Herodotus' work The Histories (7.228), to the Spartans:

ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
:::(O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti täde/
:::κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
:::keimetha tois keinon rhämasi peithomenoi.)

Which to keep the poetic context can be translated as:

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
:::that here, obedient to their laws we lie

or more literally as:

Oh foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians
:::that here we lie, obeying those words.

Many noted Greek writers composed epigrams, including some, who, like Plato, Solon and Aeschylus, were more famous for their work in other genres. The 'Anthology' contains examples from very early Greek history all the way into the Byzantine period, and even some examples by Christians. Epigrams were also written by women and other members of the less privileged classes. Nicarchus and Martial are two epigrammatists from the first century AD.

Ancient Roman

Roman epigrams owe much to their Greek predecessors and contemporaries. Roman epigrams, however, were more often satirical than Greek ones, and at times used obscene language for effect. Latin epigrams could be composed as inscriptions or graffiti, such as this one from Pompeii, which exists in several versions and seems from its inexact meter to have been composed by a less educated person. Its content, of course, makes it clear how popular such poems were:

Admiror, O paries, te non cecidisse ruinis
::qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.

I'm astonished, wall, that you haven't collapsed into ruins,
::since you're holding up the weary verse of so many poets.

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
:: Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Perhaps you're asking how I do this?
:: I don't know, but I feel it happening, and it's torture.

Disce quod ignoras: Marsi doctique Pedonis
::saepe duplex unum pagina tractat opus.
::Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis,
::sed tu, Cosconi, disticha longa facis.

Learn what you don't know: one work of (Domitius) Marsus or learned Pedo
::often stretches out over a doublesided page.
::A work isn't long if you can't take anything out of it,
::but you, Cosconius, write even a couplet too long.

Poetic epigrams

Samuel Taylor Coleridge said,

What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole;
:::Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Little strokes
:::Fell great oaks.
::: — Benjamin Franklin

:::I am His Highness' dog at Kew;
:::Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
::: — Alexander Pope

Non-poetic epigrams

The term is sometimes used for particularly pointed or much-quoted quotations taken from longer works.

See also

Other Definitions