EPODE, in verse, the third part in an ode, which followed the strophe and the antistrophe, and completed the movement; it was called ἐπῳδὸς περίοδος by the Greeks. At a certain moment the choirs, which had chanted to right of the altar or stage and then to left of it, combined and sang in unison, or permitted the coryphaeus to sing for them all, standing in the centre. When, with the appearance of Stesichorus and the evolution of choral lyric, a learned and artificial kind of poetry began to be cultivated in Greece, a new form, the εἶδος ἐπῳδικόν, or epode-song, came into existence. It consisted of a verse of trimeter iambic, followed by a dimeter iambic, and it is reported that, although the epode was carried to its highest perfection by Stesichorus, an earlier poet, Archilochus, was really the inventor of this form. The epode soon took a firm place in choral poetry, which it lost when that branch of literature declined. But it extended beyond the ode, and in the early dramatists we find numerous examples of monologues and dialogues framed on the epodical system. In Latin poetry the epode was cultivated, in conscious archaism, both as a part of the ode and as an independent branch of poetry. Of the former class, the epithalamia of Catullus, founded on an imitation of Pindar, present us with examples of strophe, antistrophe and epode; and it has been observed that the celebrated ode of Horace, beginning Quem virum aut heroa lyra vel acri, possesses this triple character. But the word is now mainly familiar from an experiment of Horace in the second class, for he entitled his fifth book of odes Epodon liber or the Book of Epodes. He says in the course of these poems, that in composing them he was introducing a new form, at least in Latin literature, and that he was imitating the effect of the iambic distichs invented by Archilochus. Accordingly we find the first ten of these epodes composed in alternate verses of iambic trimeter and iambic dimeter, thus:—
| “At o Deorum quicquid in coelo regit Terras et humanum genus.” |
In the seven remaining epodes Horace has diversified the measures, while retaining the general character of the distich. This group of poems belongs in the main to the early youth of the poet, and displays a truculence and a controversial heat which are absent from his more mature writings. As he was imitating Archilochus in form, he believed himself justified, no doubt, in repeating the sarcastic violence of his fierce model. The curious thing is that these particular poems of Horace, which are really short lyrical satires, have appropriated almost exclusively the name of epodes, although they bear little enough resemblance to the genuine epode of early Greek literature.
EPONA, a goddess of horses, asses and mules, worshipped by the Romans, though of foreign, probably Gallic, origin. The majority of inscriptions and images bearing her name have been found in Gaul, Germany and the Danube countries; of the few that occur in Rome itself most were exhumed on the site of the barracks of the equites singulares, a foreign imperial body-guard mainly recruited from the Batavians. Her name does not appear in Tertullian’s list of the indigetes di, and Juvenal contrasts her worship unfavourably with the old Roman Numa ritual. Her cult does not appear to have been introduced before imperial times, when she is often called Augusta and invoked on behalf of the emperor and the imperial house. Her chief function, however, was to see that the beasts of burden were duly fed, and to protect them against accidents and malicious influence. In the countries in which the worship of Epona was said to have had its origin it was a common belief that certain beings were in the habit of casting a spell over stables during the night. The Romans used to place the image of the goddess, crowned with flowers on festive occasions, in a sort of shrine in the centre of the architrave of the stable. In art she is generally represented seated, with her hand on the head of the accompanying horse or animal.
See Tertullian, Apol. 16; Juvenal viii. 157; Prudentius, Apoth. 197; Apuleius, Metam. iii. 27; articles in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict, des antiquités and Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie.
EPONYMOUS, that which gives a name to anything (Gr. ἐπώνυμος, from ὄνομα, a name), a term especially applied to the mythical or semi-mythical personages, heroes, deities, &c. from whom a country or city took its name. Thus Pelops is the giver of the name to the Peloponnese. At Athens the chief archon of the year was known as the ἄρχων ἐπώνυμος, as the year was known by his name. There was a similar official in ancient Assyria. In ancient times, as in historical and modern cases, a country or a city has been named after a real personage, but in many cases the person has been invented to account for the name.
EPPING, a market town in the Epping parliamentary division of Essex, England, 17 m. N.N.E. from London by a branch of the Great Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 3789. The town lies high and picturesquely, at the northern outskirts of Epping Forest. The modern church of St John the Baptist replaces the old parish church of All Saints in the village of Epping Upland 2 m. N.W. This is in part Norman. There is considerable trade in butter, cheese and sausages.