[77] Bergk (Poetæ Lyrici Græci, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1866) gives an old Greek Linus-song on p. 1297:
O Linus, thee the gods did grace;
For unto thee they gave, most dear,
First among men the song to raise
With shrill voice sounding high and clear;
And Phœbus thee in anger slays,
And Muses mourn around thy bier.
[78] Many poems of the Syracusan idyllists are valuable historically as adaptations of the hexameter to subjects essentially lyrical. In the Adoniazusæ, the Epithalamium Helenæ, the Lament for Bion, etc., we trace a lyrical inspiration overlaid by the idyllic form. Theocritus must have worked on the lines of old choral poetry.
[79] "Pour we libations to Memory's daughters, the Muses, and to the Muse-leading son of Leto."
[80] Plutarch records with just indignation the honors of this sort paid by Aratus to Antigonus: "He offered sacrifices, called Antigonea, in honor of Antigonus, and sang pæans himself, with a garland on his head, to the praise of a wasted, consumptive Macedonian" (Life of Cleomenes). The words in italics strongly express a true Greek sense of disgust for the barbarian and the weakling.
[81] See Frere, vol. ii. pp. 200, 201.
[82] See Trans. of Acharnians, Frere, vol. ii. p. 17.
[83] Frere's Translation, vol. ii. pp. 241-245.
[84] See, however, the interesting archaic hymns to Dionysus, pp. 1299, 1300.
[85] Bergk, p. 716; Pindar, Olymp., ix. 1.