Where could a poet be better lulled to rest than among the black-leaved hollows of Pieria? But the most touching tribute to Euripides is from the pen of a brother dramatist, the comic poet Philemon (ii. 94):
εἰ ταῖς ἀληθείαισιν οἱ τεθνηκότες
αἴσθησιν εἶχον, ἄνδρες ὥς φασίν τινες,
ἀπηγξάμην ἂν ὥστ' ἰδεῖν Εὐριπίδην.[187]
Aristophanes is praised by Antipater of Thessalonica (ii. 37) as the poet who laughed and hated rightly:
κωμικὲ καὶ στύξας ἄξια καὶ γελάσας.
His plays are characterized as full of fearful graces, φοβερῶν πληθόμενοι χαρίτων. Over the grave of Anacreon, who receives more tributes of this kind than any other poet, roses are to bloom, and wine is to be poured, and the thoughts of Smerdies, Bathyllus, and Megistias are to linger. Antipater of Sidon in particular paid honor to his grave (i. 278):
θάλλοι τετρακόρυμβος, Ἀνάκρεον, ἀμφὶ σὲ κισσὸς
ἁβρά τε λειμώνων πορφυρέων πέταλα·
πηγαὶ δ' ἀργινόεντος ἀναθλίβοιντο γάλακτος,
εὐῶδες δ' ἀπὸ γῆς ἡδὺ χέοιτο μέθυ,
ὄφρα κέ τοι σποδιή τε καὶ ὀστέα τέρψιν ἄρηται,
εἰ δή τις φθιμένοις χρίμπτεται εὐφροσύνα,
ὦ τὸ φίλον στέρξας, φίλε, βάρβιτον, ὦ σὺν ἀοιδᾷ
πάντα διαπλώσας καὶ σὺν ἔρωτι βίον.[188]
The same poet begins another epitaph thus:
τύμβος Ἀνακρείοντος· ὁ Τήϊος ἐνθάδε κύκνος
εὕδει χἠ παίδων ζωροτάτη μανίη.
Less cheerful are the sepulchres of the satirists. We are bidden not to wake the sleeping wasp upon the grave of Hipponax (i. 350):
ὦ ξεῖνε, φεῦγε τὸν χαλαζεπῆ τάφον
τὸν φρικτὸν Ἱππώνακτος, οὗτε χἀ τέφρα
ἰαμβιάζει Βουπάλειον ἐς στύγος,
μή πως ἐγείρῃς σφῆκα τὸν κοιμώμενον,
ὃς οὐδ' ἐν ᾅδῃ νῦν κεκοίμικεν χόλον,
σκάζουσι μέτροις ὀρθὰ τοξεύσας ἔπη.[189]