Straton was a Greek-writing poet from the Lydian city of Sardis, in the fertile Hermus valley in present-day Turkey who probably lived during the time of Adrianus (Hadrian; reign: 117-138 AD), the Roman emperor known for his love of Greek culture and his love for the young man Antinoos. Straton put together an anthology of over two hundred boy-love epigrams called Paidike Mousa, The Boyish Muse, devoted to the subject of loving boys. He may be credited as the first person known to have compiled a gay anthology. He also wrote "Leucippe and Cleitophon".
Around 900 AD, a Byzantine scholar named Kephalas (Cephalas) compiled pieces of several anthologies including The Boyish Muse to make a comprehensive collection of Greek epigrams. The Cephalan book was revised, divided into specialized anthologies, adapted for school use, and generally much copied. In 1301 AD, a scholar named Planoudes put together an expurgated version of the Cephalan book which became very popular in Greece.
When the Ottomans conquered the remains of the Byzantine empire, many Greek scholars took versions of the Planudean book with them into exile in Italy. The Greeks became teachers to Italian scholars and eventually printed an edition of the Planudean book, the Florilegium Diversorum Epigrammatum, in Florence in 1494.
Most of what we know of Straton's work comes from the "Palatine manuscript", a version of the Cephalan anthology copied around 980 AD. This manuscript was "discovered" in the library of the counts palatine in Heidelberg in 1606 or 1607.
There is no clear record of how it got there, but a visiting Italian scholar probably left it. This version of the anthology was finally published from 1794 to 1814 as Anthologia Graeca (Greek Anthology), with an appendix of poems included in the Planudean anthology but not found in the Palatine manuscript.
The remains of The Boyish Muse became book XII in this edition. Because of subject matter - "the least alluring", "of all least pleasing to modern taste" (Lawton: 73, 52) - Straton's work was generally left untranslated, or translated only into Latin, or translated only in very private editions, until the mid-20th century.
By far the greater number of sexually explicit poems deal with anal intercourse, which was Strato's goal in sexual relations with young men. The tone varies from blunt through the punning to the metaphorical and witty. That's why his epigrams have received scant and scornful attention from literary critics and historians.
Straton's anthology was a strong influence on the work of poet C.P. Cavafy.
