poems were chiefly amatory; and we still possess a magnificent ode to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Her imagery is drawn from the softer and more attractive objects of life, real or ideal, and everything assumes a more gentle and tender form in her hands.

Anacreon was a native of the Ionian city of Teos, in Asia Minor. He lived for some time with Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, in whose praise he wrote several songs; but after his death (B.C. 522) he went to Athens on the invitation of Hipparchus the tyrant, who sent fifty galleys to conduct him. Here he remained till the death of his patron (B. c. 514), when he returned to Teos, where he is said to have been choked by a grape stone. The odes commonly ascribed to Anacreon are now universally admitted to be spurious, and very few genuine fragments remain ; but from these we learn that his muse was playful, and showed a graceful imagination, rather than the deep heart-stirring emotion of Sappho.

The fact that the muse of Anacreon was occupied in celebrating the praises of love, music, wine, and the various enjoyments of the table and social circle, has caused him to be regarded as a most consummate voluptuary; but the accusation is totally unfounded in fact; and we know, from the testimony of the most celebrated writers of antiquity, that he was highly respected, and led a simple, quiet, easy life, refusing the magnificent presents of his friend the tyrant Polycrates, on the ground that the anxiety connected with riches more than outbalanced the pleasure in their enjoyment. The language of Anacreon approaches nearer to the style of conversation than that of the Aeolic lyric poets; and his rhythm has a graceful ease and negligence. With him ended that kind of lyric poetry in which he excelled, as choral poetry superseded it; for songs to be sung by a single person were never so common among the Greeks, as in modern English and German poetry.

We now come to the other division of Greek lyric poetry, the Doric or Choral; we shall merely glance at the more distinguished masters of this department, commencing with Aleman, who, like Tyrtaeus, was a lyric poet of Sparta, though not a Lacedaemonian. He was originally a Lydian slave in a Spartan family, but had been freed by his master. He flourished during the calm which succeeded the second Messenian war, when order and prosperity had been restored, and accordingly his poetry is a reflex of the times, being chiefly amatory, and occupied in describing the blessings of peace, and celebrating the pleasures of the table. He wrote in the Laconian dialect, and invented and improved several metres.

About this time choral poetry received various improvements, but more especially at the hands of Arion (B. c. 625—610), who was a native of Methymna, in Lesbos, and the first that gave a regular form to the Dithyramb, a choral song and dance, which had existed from very early times in a rude and imperfect state. He had fifty persons specially trained to dance around the altar and sing the praises of Dionysus; and in this practice we discover the origin of tragedy. Of his life we know nothing, except what we may gather from the following beautiful poetical story of his escape from the sailors. He went to a great musical contest in Sicily, and having won the prize, was returning home in a Corinthian vessel with his wealth, of which the sailors determined to rob him. Arion knew their intention, and after earnestly imploring them in vain to spare his life, he was allowed as a favour to play for the last time on his beloved lyre. Standing gaily dressed on the prow of the ship, he sent forth the most melting strains, and then suddenly leapt into the sea; but many song-loving dolphins had congregated around, and on the back of one of these he was carried safely to Corinth, where he related his whole adventures to his friend Periander the tyrant, who questioned the sailors on their arrival regarding Arion. They, supposing him to be drowned, replied that they had left him at Tarentum; but we may conceive their astonishment on Arion presenting himself in the very same attire in which they had last seen him. The sailors were thus at once convicted, and paid the penalty of their crime.

About the same time as Arion, lived Stesichorus (B. c. 635— 554), a native of Himera, in Sicily. By travelling he made himself acquainted with the greater part of Greece, and was buried in a splendid tomb at Catana, near a gate of the city. He was originally called Tisias, but afterwards Stesichorus, owing to his improvements in choral poetry, which were so great that he is often called the inventor of that kind of composition. He broke through the uniformity of choral poetry by introducing the epode, and thus dividing it into the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epodos. He used the Dorian with an admixture of the epic dialect; and his metres had all the elements of Pindar and the tragedians.

Ibycus was a native of Rhegium, and lived mostly at the court of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, about B. c. 540. Of his life we know absolutely nothing. His poetry was chiefly amatory, and dwelt upon the delights of the senses; but in his poems on heroic subjects he closely followed Stesichorus.

We now come to Simonides, who was born at Iulis in the island of Ceos, and, like his parents, was carefully educated in music and

poetry. He went to Athens on the invitation of Hipparchus, at whose court he enjoyed the society of Pindar and the dithyrambic poet Lasus, the teacher of Pindar, and the intercourse and rivalry thus brought about must have been equally beneficial to all. On the expulsion of Hippias (B. c. 510) he went to Thessaly, where he lived some time under the patronage of the Aleuads and Scopads, the ruling families in the cities of Larissa and Crannon. Here however he was not treated with the respect due to his high position, as appears from the following story. Simonides at the request of Scopas composed some verses in his honour, which he sang at one of his banquets; but on applying to him for his promised reward, the tyrant gave him only the one half, on the ground that he had introduced the praises of Castor and Polydeuces, and jestingly told him that they would no doubt be happy to pay him the other half. Shortly after, a message was brought to Simonides that two young men on horseback, wishing urgently to see him, were at the door. He went out, but saw no one; and immediately the building fell, burying Scopas and his friends in its ruins. The story, like the dolphins of Arion, is a fiction, but forms a fine poetical tribute to his memory, in placing the poet under the immediate protection of the gods.

New scenes, however, awaited Simonides, who now returned to Athens, as the whole of Greece was convulsed with the Persian invasion, the main events of which he celebrated in song. He gained a glorious victory over Aeschylus in the contest for the prize which was offered for the best elegy on those who had fallen at Marathon. He had now reached his eightieth year, when he obtained additional laurels by his dithyrambic chorus (B. c. 477), which made his fifty-sixth prize; but shortly after this he went to Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, with whom he lived till his death ten years afterwards (B. c. 467). The advanced age to which he lived enabled him to be the most prolific poet of Greece, but only a few fragments remain. He wrote on almost every subject that could be treated lyrically, and his poetry is remarkable for its sweetness and elaborate finish; but in originality and fervour he was inferior not only to Sappho and Alcaeus, but also to his contemporary Pindar.

Bacchylides was the nephew and fellow-townsman of Simonides, and lived with him and Pindar at the court of Hiero. His poems were on much the same subjects as his uncle's, and had much the same characteristics; in his lamentations over the inexorable character of fate he reminds one of the Ionic elegy. He wrote in the Doric dialect with an admixture of the Attic, so that his dialect resembles that of the choruses in Attic tragedy.

Pindar was born either in the neighbourhood of or at Thebes, in Boeotia, about B. C. 522. His family was among the noblest in

Thebes, and was celebrated for its skill in music. He soon gave indications of a genius for poetry, which caused his father to send him to Athens to attend Lasus of Hermione, the founder of the Athenian school of dithyrambic poetry; but before the age of twenty he returned to Thebes, where he enjoyed the benefit of the instructions of Myrtis and Corinna, two poetesses of great celebrity in Boeotia. To Corinna especially he was indebted for several valuable hints, as it was she who suggested to him the introduction of mythological narratives in his poems. With both these poetesses he often contended in the musical contests at Thebes, but Corinna defeated him on five separate occasions. Having received instructions in music, dancing, and the whole training of a chorus, he commenced his professional career about twenty, and in a very short time acquired so extensive a reputation that his muse was courted by all the states and princes of the Hellenic race; but especially by Alexander of Macedonia, whose praises he often sang; and this circumstance induced Alexander the Great to spare Pindar's house when he destroyed Thebes. About B. c. 473 he visited Hiero of Syracuse, with whom he remained only four years, as he did not feel thoroughly independent, and would not, like Simonides, stoop to court and flatter him. The free states of Greece vied in honouring him ; and, though a Theban, the Athenians made him their public guest, gave him 100,000 drachmas, and after his death erected a monument to his memory. The Rhodians had his seventh Olympian ode written in letters of gold in the temple of the Lindian Athene. He excelled in all the known varieties of choral poetry; but only his Epinicia or triumphal odes have survived, which were composed in commemoration of victories gained at the great public games. The style of Pindar, as seen from these odes, is so sublime, that he is often compared to the eagle in its daring flights, but his transitions are often so abrupt that they may be said to form a defect rather than a beauty.

Scene from a Greek Comedy.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE GREEK DRAMA.

So far as we have proceeded we have seen the Greek nation engaged in the pursuits of literature, and each race cultivating that branch of composition most suited to its genius, and leaving its peculiar stamp upon it; but we now enter on a new era in the literary development of the Greeks, and our attention will be confined to Athens in particular, which now became both the political and intellectual capital of Greece. Hitherto the Athenians had been too busily engaged in arranging their own affairs, and in spreading their influence by colonies along the coast of Asia Minor, to devote much time to literature; but now that order had been restored and democracy established on a firm basis, the natural talent of the Ionian race began to break forth, and continued to shine with undiminished lustre from the Persian invasion to the end of the Peloponnesian war.

As, however, the literature, and especially the poetry, of a nation is a reflex of the state of feeling among the people, the Athenian mind required a new field of action, and this it found in the drama, which combined the excellences of all preceding compositions. We first had the Epic period, representing the spirit of the heroic age; then the Lyric, to express the new feelings and thoughts consequent on a change in society; and, lastly, we have popular literature in the Drama, or Lyric personified, embodying the democratic feeling and the lively emotions of the Ionian race, which required both action and sentiment. Though such was probably the reason why literature assumed this particular shape at Athens, yet let us look at the history of the drama, and