SELECT EPIGRAMS "inscriptions" FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY

The Greek word "epigram" in its original meaning is precisely equivalent to the Latin word "inscription"; and it probably came into use in this sense at a very early period of Greek history, anterior even to the invention of prose. Inscriptions at that time, if they went beyond a mere name or set of names, or perhaps the bare statement of a single fact, were necessarily in verse, then the single vehicle of organised expression.