- Simonides the Elder, of Amorgus
(660 B.C.), “the Iambographer: “style flowing and polished: masterpiece, a satire on women—“Even though they seem to be good, when one has got one she becomes a plague.” - Hip’ponax of Ephesus (540 B.C.),
the father of parody, and inventor of the choliambic measure, or limping iambic, in which the last foot was a spondee. He attacked the luxury and vice of his day, sparing neither friend nor relative; it is told that by his crushing satire a sculptor who had caricatured his ugly person was driven to suicide. It was Hipponax who said: “Woman gives two days of happiness to man, the day of her bridal and the day of her funeral.” The stranger who passed his tomb was warned: - “Wake not the sleeping wasp, for though he’s dead,
- Still straight and sure his crooked lines are sped.”
MINOR POETS OF THE CHORAL SCHOOL.
- Alcman (671-631 B.C.), Sparta’s jovial lyric poet, an emancipated Lydian slave.
- Stesich’orus of Sicily (632-560 B.C.), inventor of the choric system; named from his occupation Stesichorus, leader of the chorus. His greatness foreshadowed by a nightingale that alighted on his infant lips and burst into song: hymns, fables, pastorals: the earliest Greek novelist; his love tales and romances narrated in verse.
- Terpander the Lesbian (about 650 B.C.), the founder of Greek musical science, and inventor of the heptachord, or seven-stringed lyre.
- Ib’ycus, of Rhegium in southern Italy (540 B.C.), lived in Samos as the friend of Polycrates, His odes principally erotic: from the warmth of his passion, Ibycus was styled “the love-maddened.”
- Bacchyl’ides (470 B.C.), the nephew
of Simonides of Ceos: hymns, epigrams,
etc., in Doric: style highly
polished: a specimen epigram is,
- “The touchstone tries the purity of gold,
- And by all-conquering truth man’s worth and wit are told.”
- Timoc’reon of Rhodes (471 B.C.), lyric poet and satirist.
CHAPTER IV.
RISE OF GREEK PROSE.
Earliest Prose Writings.—For several centuries, the literature of Greece was confined to poetry. In Hellas, as elsewhere, verse for a time at first so charmingly and completely filled the popular ear that there was no desire, no room, for prose. But, as new necessities arose, poetry could not suffice for Greece; not with epic and lyric voice alone were her men of genius to gain a hearing from the world. National achievements must be recorded; the people must be appealed to in the agora; the curtain of metaphysics must be raised; and so History, Oratory, and Philosophy appeared upon the stage. To these practical new-comers, the plain garb of prose was found more appropriate than the broidery of verse.
Moreover, the introduction of facilities for writing favored the development of prose literature; for, unlike poetry, it needed a written form to give it permanence. When the art of writing became familiar, and men with its help could rapidly inscribe their thoughts for others still more rapidly to read, prose, as a distinct branch of composition, was born; and its birth marked an era in the intellectual growth of the Greeks.
Ever since the introduction of letters, prose had doubtless been used more or less in despatches, records, laws, and official documents. Pherecy’des of Sy’ros and Cadmus of Miletus (about 550 B.C.) were the first to secure its recognition as a department of polite literature, the one embodying in it his philosophical doctrines, the other the fabulous history of his native land—with homely strength, if not with artistic finish.
Era of the Sages.—In the period during which prose gained its first foothold flourished the Seven Sages of Greece (665-540 B.C.). Revolutions were then the order of the day, the people were beginning actively to assert their rights, and political questions of vital interest absorbed the attention of thinkers. The flights of fancy became fewer, as these grave problems presented themselves. Philosophers strove to solve them at home; patriots went abroad to study foreign institutions; and all awoke to the discovery that “knowledge is power.”
The Seven Sages were gnomic poets, as well as philosophers and statesmen. Their moral and political maxims they usually threw into verse; but those inscribed on plates of metal and deposited in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, were in prose. In their proverbs, whether prose or poetry, we discern the dawn of moral philosophy.
Solon.—The greatest of the Seven Sages were Solon and Thales. Solon of Athens was born about 638 B.C. After extensive travels and studies, he drew up for the Athenians (594 B.C.) the famous code called by his name, which reformed many abuses and secured to the people a liberal government. His laws were written in prose on the polished faces of triangular wooden prisms. These were set in frames, and turned on pivots by persons who wished to consult them. The state copy was carved on four-sided blocks of brass, and kept in the Acropolis.