MELEAGER

in Greek mythology, the leader of the Calydonian boar hunt. The Iliad relates how Meleager's father, King Oeneus (q.v.) of Calydon, had omitted to sacrifice to Artemis, who sent a wild boar to ravage the country. Meleager collected a band of heroes to drive it away and eventually killed it himself. The Calydonians and the Curetes (neighbouring warriors who aided in the hunt) then quarrelled over the spoils, and war broke out between them. At one point the Curetes besieged Calydon and were ready to take it when Meleager finally repulsed them. The Iliad does not describe Meleager's death, though it mentions that it occurred before the Trojan War. A variant tradition relates that Meleager's mother, Althea, caused his death by burning the log whose span of existence was coterminous with his. Meleager forms the subject of the Meleager of Euripides, of which only fragments survive. flourished 1st century BC Greek poet from Gadara in Syria, who compiled the first large anthology of epigrams. This was the first of the collections that made up what is known as the Greek Anthology (q.v.). Meleager's collection contained poems by 50 writers and many by himself; an introductory poem compared each writer to a flower, and the whole was entitled Stephanos (Garland). Meleager's own poems do not rank particularly high, though they are held to be neatly constructed, and they treat erotic themes with cleverness. He lived in Tyre and, in old age, on the Aegean island of Cos.