The first representative of this school that we may mention was Callinus, an Ephesian of the latter part of the eighth century B.C., to whom the invention of the elegiac distich, the characteristic form of the Ionian poetry, is attributed. Among the few fragments from this poet is the following fine war elegy, occasioned, probably, by a Persian invasion of Asia Minor:

How long will ye slumber! when will ye take heart,
And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand?
Fie! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part,
While the sword and the arrow are wasting our land!
Shame! Grasp the shield close! cover well the bold breast!
Aloft raise the spear as ye march on the foe!
With no thought of retreat, with no terror confessed,
Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow.
Oh, 'tis noble and glorious to fight for our all—
For our country, our children, the wife of our love!
Death comes not the sooner; no soldier shall fall
Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above.
Once to die is man's doom: rush, rush to the fight!
He cannot escape though his blood were Jove's own.
For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight;
Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone.
Unlamented he dies—unregretted? Not so
When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave;
Thrice hallowed his name among all, high or low,
As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave.
—Trans. by H. N. COLERIDGE.

[Footnote: The "sisters" here alluded to were the
Par'coe, or Fates—three goddesses who presided over
the destinies of mortals: 1st, Clo'tho, who held the
distaff; 2d, Lach'esis, who spun each one's portion
of the thread of life; and, 3d, At'ropos, who cut off
the thread with her scissors.

Clotho and Lachesis, whose boundless sway,
With Atropos, both men and gods obey. —HESIOD.]

ARCHIL'OCHUS.

Next in point of time comes Archilochus of Pa'ros, a satirist who flourished between 714 and 676 B.C. He is generally considered to be the first Greek poet who wrote in the Iambic measure; but there are evidences that this measure existed before his time. This poet was betrothed to the daughter of a noble of Paros; but the father, probably tempted by the alluring offers of a richer suitor, forbade the nuptials. Archilochus thereupon composed so bitter a lampoon upon the family that the daughters of the nobleman are said to have hanged themselves. Says SYMONDS, "He made Iambic metre his own, and sharpened it into a terrible weapon of attack. Each verse he wrote was polished, and pointed like an arrow-head. Each line was steeped in the poison of hideous charges against his sweetheart, her sisters, and her father." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets;" First Series, p. 108.]

Thenceforth Archilochus led a wandering life, full of vicissitudes, but replete with evidences of his merit. "While Hesiod was in the poor and backward parts of central Greece, modifying with timid hand the tone and style of epic poetry, without abandoning its form, Archilochus, storm-tossed amid wealth and poverty, amid commerce and war, amid love and hate, ever in exile and yet everywhere at home—Archilochus broke altogether with the traditions of literature, and colonized new territories with his genius." [Footnote: "Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p.157.] He is said to have returned to Paros a short time before his death, where, on account of a victory he had won at the Olympic festival, the resentment and hatred formerly entertained against him were turned into gratitude and admiration. His death, which occurred on the field of battle, could not extinguish his fame, and his memory was celebrated by a festival established by his countrymen, during which his verses were sung alternately with the poems of Homer. "Thus," says an old historian, "by a fatality frequently attending men of genius, he spent a life of misery, and acquired honor after death. Reproach, ignominy, contempt, poverty, and persecution were the ordinary companions of his person; admiration, glory, respect, splendor, and magnificence were the attendants of his shade." With the exception of Homer, no poet of classical antiquity acquired so high a celebrity. Among the Greeks and Romans he was equally esteemed. Cicero classed him with Sophocles, Pindar, and even Homer; Plato called him the "wisest of poets;" and Longinus "speaks with rapture of the torrent of his divine inspiration."

ALC'MAN.

Passing over Simonides of Amorgos, who is chiefly celebrated for a very ungallant but ingenious and smooth satire on women, and over Tyrtæ'us, whose animating and patriotic odes, as we have seen, proved the safety of Sparta in one of the Messenian wars, we come to the first truly lyric poet of Greece—Alcman— originally a Lydian slave in a Spartan family, but emancipated by his master on account of his genius. He flourished after the second Messenian war, and his poems partake of the character of this period, which was one of pleasure and peace. They are chiefly erotic, or amatory, or in celebration of the enjoyments of social life. He successfully cultivated choral poetry, and his Parthenia, made up of a variety of subjects, was composed to be sung by the maidens of Tayge'tus. "His excellence," says MURE, "appears to have lain in his descriptive powers. The best, and one of the longest extant passages of his works is a description of sleep, or rather of night; a description unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, by any similar passage in the Greek or any other language, and which has been imitated or paraphrased by many distinguished poets." [Footnote: "History of Greek Literature," vol. iii., p. 205.] The following is this author's translation of it:

Now o'er the drowsy earth still night prevails.
Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales,
The rugged cliffs and hollow glens;
The wild beasts slumber in their dens,
The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea
The countless finny race and monster brood
Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee
Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood
No more with noisy hum of insect rings;
And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued,
Roost in the glade and hang their drooping wings.