Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Epithalamium

（τὸ ἐπιθαλάμιον μέλος). A nuptial song. (See Matrimonium.) In Greek, Sappho, Anacreon, Stesichorus, and Pindar composed poems of this kind, of which, however, only fragments remain. We have three epithalamia of Catullus, of which that on the marriage of Peleus and Thetis is one of the most splendid in all literature. In the imperial age, Statius, Ausonius, Claudianus, Paulinus of Nola, Sidonius Apollinaris, Dracontius, Ennodius, Luxorius, Venantius Fortunatus wrote poems of the same class that have survived. Those of Ausonius and Luxorius are Vergilian centos. (See Cento.) A collection of Latin epithalamia may be found in Wernsdorf's Poetae Latini Minores, iv. pt. ii. 462.