[40] Leont. iii. 37, of which passage Poseidippus was doubtless thinking in his epigram Anth. Pal. xii. 168.
[41] Leont. iii. 27 seqq. 47 seqq. &c.
[42] Suidas, it may be remarked, flatly contradicts one half of this view when he says of Mimnermus ἔγραψε βιβλία πολλά.
[43] It is hardly justifiable to infer from the passage of Alexander Aetolus ap. Athen. xv. 699 C, that Mimnermus addressed love-poems to boys.
[44] It is as a philosopher that Horace (Ep. i. 6, 65) cites his opinion:
si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore iocisque
nil est iucundum;
“censet,” the regular word for a philosopher. It is further worth noticing that the Roman poets, when they mention Mimnermus, speak of him as the inventor of the elegiac metre, not as an erotic poet. Cp. e.g. Prop. i. 9, 11.
[45] That the ancients already recognised the importance of this particular feature in Anacreon is shown inter alia by the emphasis laid upon it by Critias (ap. Athen. xiii. 600 D).
[46] Vide e.g. Athen. xii. 540 E.