Whether these elegies were as sober and as little sensual in tone as those of Antimachus (cp. infra, [p. 110]), it is impossible now to say; though the two passages cited from Ovid both seem indirectly to imply that they were, and there is certainly nothing in the fragments of Philetas which would lead one to infer that they were not. It need hardly be added that the passage in Ovid, Ars Amat. iii. 329 seqq. proves nothing, for the “lascivia” there ascribed to Sappho is obviously not meant to apply to all the other poets mentioned in the list, or Vergil’s name would hardly appear in it.
[124] In the poems of Theognis, which are practically epigrams, in the later sense of the word. The epigrams of Plato, if genuine, would be another even more striking instance.
[125] Whether the words are to be taken as really seriously meant is, of course, doubtful, though one’s instinctive distrust of their sincerity is perhaps misplaced; for, after all, this is very primitive poetry of its kind. That such words should have been written at all is the remarkable point about them.
[126] [Cp. [p. 81, n. 1].]
[127] Vide e.g. Anth. Pal. v. 158.
[128] The reading ποτέ is certainly happier than παρά. Cp. Theocr. xxix. 39; vide infra [p. 84].
[129] xii. 153 is further interesting as one of the very few of the earlier epigrams, which profess to describe the woman’s feelings.
[130] In the Antilais; vide Meineke, Com. Fr. iii. p. 365.
[131] The above instances may serve to give some idea of the prevailing character of Asclepiades’ epigrams; on the wonderful grace and charm of this new love-poetry, it is needless to dwell. The best and truest description of Asclepiades and his followers ever given, is that of Meleager, when he calls them the wild-flowers in his Garland.
ἐν δὲ Ποσείδιππόν τε καὶ Ἡδύλον, ἄγρι’ ἀρούρης,