The first anthology was compiled by
Meleager of
Gadara (in Syria, where the
swine came from) in the early first century BCE from the works of forty-six
Greek poets. It consisted of
epigrams, short poems on various subjects in a variety of styles. It is so called because in an introductory poem Meleager compared each poet's work to a different
flower in the
garland he was making: such as
honeysuckle for
Anacreon, the
lily for
Anyte, the
golden bough of
Plato, "few, but
roses" from
Sappho, and
ivy clusters from
Leonidas.
This doesn't survive to this day, but it was the basis of later anthologies: by Philippus, Strato, Diogenianus under the Romans; by Agathias in the 500s under Byzantium; and the greatest compilation was that by Constantinus Cephalas around 900. It was ousted by a poorer reworking of his by Maximus Planudes around 1300, which was printed in the West in 1494 by a refugee from the fall of Constantinople.
The anthologies of Cephalas and Planudes hold some 3700 works between them, of variable quality, but preserving many of the best short Greek poetry.
The full edition of Cephalas, the famous Palatine Anthology, was not printed until 1776.