How very imperfectly the chronology of the poetical names even of the sixth century B. C.—Sappho, Anakreon, Hippônax—was known even to writers of the beginning of the Ptolemaic age (or shortly after 300 B. C.), we may see by the mistakes noted in Athenæus, xiii, p. 599. Hermesianax of Kolophon, the elegiac poet, represented Anakreon as the lover of Sappho; this might perhaps be not absolutely impossible, if we supposed in Sappho an old age like that of Ninon de l’Enclos; but others (even earlier than Hermesianax, since they are quoted by Chamæleon) represented Anakreon, when in old age, as addressing verses to Sappho, still young. Again, the comic writer Diphilus introduced both Archilochus and Hippônax as the lovers of Sappho.
[148] The Latin poets and the Alexandrine critics seem to have both insisted on the natural mournfulness of the elegiac metre (Ovid, Heroid. xv, 7; Horat. Art. Poet. 75): see also the fanciful explanation given by Didymus in the Etymologicon Magnum, v. Ἔλεγος.
We learn from Hephæstion (c. viii, p. 45, Gaisf.) that the anapæstic march-metre of Tyrtæus was employed by the comic writers also, for a totally different vein of feeling. See the Dissertation of Franck, Callinus, pp. 37-48 (Leips. 1816).
Of the remarks made by O. Müller respecting the metres of these early poets (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. xi, s. 8-12, etc.; ch. xii, s. 1-2, etc.), many appear to be uncertified and disputable.
For some good remarks on the fallibility of men’s impressions respecting the natural and inherent ἦθος of particular metres, see Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiment, part v, ch. i, p. 329), in the edition of his works by Dugald Stewart.
[149] See the observations in Aristotle (Rhetor. iii, 9) on the λέξις εἰρομένη as compared with λέξις κατεστραμμένη·—λέξις εἰρομένη, ἣ οὐδὲν ἔχει τέλος αὐτὴ καθ᾽ αὑτὴν, ἂν μὴ τὸ πρᾶγμα τὸ λεγόμενον τελειώθη·—κατεστραμμένη δὲ, ἡ ἐν περιόδοις· λέγω δὲ περίοδον, λέξιν ἔχουσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ τελευτὴν αὐτὴν καθ᾽ αὑτὴν καὶ μέγεθος εὐσύνοπτον.
[150] I employ, however unwillingly, the word thesis here (arsis and thesis) in the sense in which it is used by G. Hermann (“Illud tempus, in quo ictus est, arsin; ea tempora, quæ carent ictu, thesin vocamus,” Element. Doctr. Metr. sect. 15), and followed by Boeckh, in his Dissertation on the Metres of Pindar (i, 4), though I agree with Dr. Barham (in the valuable Preface to his edition of Hephæstion, Cambridge, 1843, pp. 5-8) that the opposite sense of the words would be the preferable one, just as it was the original sense in which they were used by the best Greek musical writers: Dr. Barham’s Preface is very instructive on the difficult subject of ancient rhythm generally.
[151] Homer, Hymn. ad Cererem. 202; Hesychius, v. Γεφυρὶς; Herodot. v, 83; Diodor. v, 4. There were various gods at whose festivals scurrility (τωθασμὸς) was a consecrated practice, seemingly different festivals in different places (Aristot. Politic. vii, 15, 8).
The reader will understand better what this consecrated scurrility means by comparing the description of a modern traveller in the kingdom of Naples (Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, by Mr. Keppel Craven, London, 1821, ch. xv, p. 287):—
“I returned to Gerace (the site of the ancient Epizephyrian Lokri) by one of those moonlights which are known only in these latitudes, and which no pen or pencil can portray. My path lay along some cornfields, in which the natives were employed in the last labors of the harvest, and I was not a little surprised to find myself saluted with a volley of opprobrious epithets and abusive language, uttered in the most threatening voice, and accompanied with the most insulting gestures. This extraordinary custom is of the most remote antiquity, and is observed towards all strangers during the harvest and vintage seasons; those who are apprized of it will keep their temper as well as their presence of mind, as the loss of either would only serve as a signal for still louder invectives, and prolong a contest in which success would be as hopeless as undesirable.”