Anth. Pal. ix. 63.
And the passage in Poseidippus, where Antimachus and Mimnermus, coupled but contrasted, are spoken of as the first two love-poets, is scarcely less emphatic.[200]
In the case of Philetas, the evidence is also strong. His elegies addressed to Battis are generally admitted to have been modelled, in form, at any rate, on the Lyde of Antimachus; and it does not seem unjustifiable to infer from this that their spirit and their general character were also, in the main, similar. The way in which the two poets are coupled by Ovid (Trist. i. 6, 1) seems to support this view, and, as we have already seen, there is no evidence to the contrary.[201] To sum up, then: the conclusions arrived at are briefly as follows:
(1) In extant Greek poetry there is no trace of romantic love-poetry addressed to women, prior to the time of Asclepiades and Philetas.
(2) In the works of these writers this element suddenly appears, not in the nature of an experiment, but as a leading motive—an almost sure proof that they were not the originators of it.
(3) The Lyde of Antimachus was a work of such a kind, both in nature and in circumstances of production, that there is every reason to believe that it was a romantic love-poem.
(4) Philetas and Asclepiades were notoriously admirers of the Lyde of Antimachus.
(5) Therefore there is reason to believe that the romantic element appearing in their poems was due to the influence of Antimachus, who may thus be regarded as the originator of the romantic element in literature.
Vale, lector benevole, si quidem huc usque mecum perveneris.