THE LIBRA! 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
 
 
 
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 -v: , 
 
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 Ancient Classics for English Readers 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 THE 
 
 GKEEK ANTHOLOGY
 
 A SERIES OF 
 
 ANCIENT CLASSICS 
 
 ENGLISH READERS. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 IR, IE AT. 'W. LTJO^LS O O ID 31 1 IDsT S. 
 20 Vols. Small izmo. Fine cloth. $1.00 each. 
 
 NOW COMPLETE, EMBRACING 
 
 1. HOMER'S ILIAD. 
 
 2. HOMER'S ODYSSEY. 
 
 3. HERODOTUS. 
 
 4. CJESAR. 
 
 5. VIRGIL. 
 
 6. HORACE. 
 
 7. 7ESCHYLUS. 
 
 8. XENOPIION. 
 
 9. CICERO. 
 
 10. SOPHOCLES. 
 
 11. PLINY. 
 
 12. EURIPIDES. 
 
 13. JUVENAL. 
 
 14. ARISTOPHANES. 
 
 15. HESIOD & THEOGNIS. 
 
 16. PLAUTUS & TERENCE. 
 
 17. TACITUS. 
 
 18. LUCIAN. 
 
 19. PLATO. 
 
 20. GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 The aim of this delightful series of books is to explain, suf- 
 ficiently for general readers, who these great writers were, and 
 what they wrote ; to give, wherever possible, some connected 
 outline of the story which they tell, or the facts which they re- 
 cord, checked by the results of modern investigations ; to present 
 some of their most striking passages in approved English transla- 
 tions, and to illustrate them generally from modern writers ; to 
 serve, in short, as a popular retrospect of the chief literature of 
 Greece and Rome. 
 
 " Each successive issue only adds to our appreciation of the learning and 
 skill with which this admirable enterprise of bringing the best classics within 
 easy reach of English readers is conducted." New York Independent. 
 
 " One of the most ingenious and successful literary enterprises of the day." 
 Every Satiirday. 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Publishers, 
 
 715 and 717 Market St., Philadelphia.
 
 THE 
 
 GREEK ANTHOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD NEAVES 
 
 ONE OF TUB SENATORS OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTIC* 
 IN SCOTLAND 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1875.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION 1 
 
 ii II. DEDICATORY, 17 
 
 n III. SEPULCHRAL, 57 
 
 ii IV. AMATORY ..80 
 
 r V. DIDACTIC, 97 
 
 ii VI. LITE11AUY AND AUTISTIC, .... 118 
 
 n VII. WITTY AND SATIRICAL, .... 179 
 
 ii VIII. NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS, , . 197 
 
 2041849
 
 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTEE L 
 
 INTRODUCTION; 
 
 THE Collection, or rather the Collections, of small 
 poems known as the Greek "Anthology," have long 
 been an object of great interest to scholars. They 
 have been much studied and repeatedly edited. The 
 individual poems, or selections from them, have been 
 often translated and often imitated. They employed 
 the best care of the great printer, Henry Stephens. 
 They were favourite subjects of study with Erasmus, 
 and his friend Sir Thomas More. The greater part 
 of them were excellently translated into Latin verse 
 by Hugo Grotius, a man sometimes overrated and 
 sometimes underrated, but undoubtedly eminent in 
 various departments of learning as a scholar, a jurist, 
 and a theologian. The poet Gray, a critic of nice 
 and fastidious taste, made them the object of particu- 
 lar attention, and enriched an interleaved copy of 
 Stephens's Anthology with copious notes, parallel pas- 
 A. c. vol. xx. A
 
 2 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 sages, and conjectural emendations, besides transfusing 
 several of the epigrams into Latin verse. They beguiled 
 some of the weary hours which Johnson felt heavy on 
 his hands in his last illness, and they helped to cheer 
 the melancholy and morbid life which was the lot of 
 the amiable Cowper. 
 
 It is true that, amidst the general chorus of appro- 
 bation which they have excited, a few anserine dis- 
 cords have occasionally been heard. Chesterfield, in 
 his famous Letters, thus peremptorily denounces them 
 to his son: "I hope you will keep company with 
 Horace and Cicero among the Eomans, and Homer 
 and Xenophon among the Greeks, and that you have 
 got out of the worst company in the world the Greek 
 epigrams. Martial has wit, and is worth looking into 
 sometimes ; but I recommend the Greek epigrams to 
 your supreme contempt." But whatever we may think 
 of his lordship in respect of knowledge of life and 
 worldly wisdom, we are not disposed to bow to his 
 authority in literature any more than in morals. 
 
 The supposed insipidity of Greek epigrams had 
 been a well-known subject of jest in Paris in the cen- 
 tury preceding Chesterfield's time. Racan, the French 
 poet, was shown by a lady some epigrams of her own 
 composition. He pronounced them bad, because they 
 wanted point. She replied that that was of no con- 
 sequence, as they were epigrams a la Grecque. They 
 met at dinner soon afterwards, where the soup served 
 up was not very palatable, and the lady observed to 
 llacan that it was abominable. He replied: "^Made- 
 moiselle, it is soupe a la Grecque," which expression
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 having got abroad became a favourite mode of 
 designating an indifferent soup.* A French poet, 
 or indeed a French man of fashion generally, was 
 likely enough to miss in the Greek compositions the 
 piquancy for which his own literature is so remark- 
 able, and Chesterfield's school of taste was eminently 
 French. But Menage himself, who tells the story 
 given above, but who was a good scholar, and a 
 considerable wit, appreciated highly the Greek epi- 
 grams, and composed a good many Greek imitations 
 of them. 
 
 Men of the greatest learning and best taste have, since 
 Chesterfield's time and down to our own day, given a 
 very diU'ereiit verdict from his opinion, and, we may 
 say, have done so unanimously. We rind, no doubt, 
 in the Anthology, that admixture of good, bad, and 
 indifferent which Martial pronounces to be unavoid- 
 able in all similar collections; but to prefer Martial 
 to his Greek prototypes, or r.ither predecessors, as 
 Chesterfield does, would now be universally held to 
 be blind and tasteless criticism. We feel assured that, 
 even under the disadvantages arising from their wearing 
 an English dress, the specimens given in this volume 
 will justify to its readers the high estimate of the 
 Anthology which has so completely gained the ascend- 
 ant among men of true discernment. 
 
 Until the beginning of the seventeenth century the 
 only " Greek Anthology " considered to be extant in 
 anything like a complete state was the collection made 
 
 * Meuagiaua, 165.
 
 4 TIIE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 by Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople, who 
 flourished about the middle or in the earlier half of 
 the fourteenth century. Planudes was considered to 
 have compiled this collection from an Anthology, or, 
 as it was called, a " Cycle," of epigrams, put together 
 by Agathias surnamed, from his study of law, Scho- 
 lasticus a well-known though heavy historian, who 
 was a native of Myrine, and lived in the time of Jus- 
 tinian, in the sixth century after Christ. Planudes's 
 collection was distributed into seven books, under dif- 
 erent heads, according to the subjects treated of. 
 
 It was about the year 1606 that the great scholar 
 Siilmasius, then a youth of eighteen, discovered in the 
 library of the Palatinate at Heidelberg another MS. of 
 a Greek Anthology, compiledbyConstantinus Cephalas, 
 of whom not even the name had been previously heard. 
 Cephalas appears to have lived about the beginning of 
 the tenth century, and thus, in point of chronology, 
 occupies an intermediate position between Agathias 
 and Planudes. The latter collector, as seems now 
 to be probable, employed himself chiefly in abridging 
 and rearranging the work of Cephalas, which is gene- 
 rally the more copious of the two, though not on all 
 subjects. Planudes has been somewhat harshly as- 
 sailed as not merely destitute of taste, but as having 
 expurgated lines and even stanzas in the original 
 poems, and either omitted them altogether or replaced 
 them with phraseology of his own. We are not will- 
 ing, however, to cancel or much diminish the debt 
 which we undoubtedly owe him ; and there are not a 
 few epigrams suppressed by him which have since come
 
 INTRODUCTION: 5 
 
 to light, and which had bet t cr never have been published 
 or never written. His Anthology, until Salmusius's dis- 
 covery, was the only considerable repertory of this kind 
 of literature, and was a source of inexhaustible interest, 
 amusement, and instruction to many generations of 
 scholars. Planudes, though his taste may have been 
 defective, was a man of learning as well as of worth. 
 Jle translated into Greek Ovid's Metamorphoses and 
 other Latin works; and it seems now to be proved that 
 he was not the author of a foolish life of /Esop that 
 was long ascribed to him. 
 
 It is remarkable that while the Palatine Anthology 
 had been discovered by Salmasius so early as the begin- 
 ning of the seventeenth century, and the discovery made 
 gem-rally known, and although it was the declared in- 
 tention of Salmasius to publish it immediately, a num- 
 ber of circumstances interfered for a long time to prevent 
 that step being taken ; and it was only about the end 
 of the last or the beginning of the present century, at 
 an interval of nearly two hundred years, that it was 
 given to the world by Brunck and by Jacobs. The 
 MS. had in the mean time gone through a variety of 
 adventures, having been removed to the Vatican in 
 1G23 witli the rest of the Palatine library, there- 
 after transferred to Paris in 1797, and in 1815 finally 
 restored to Heidelberg, where we suppose it now lies, 
 if none of the recent German arrangements have led to 
 a change. 
 
 Partial transcripts of it had in the mean time been 
 made, but the final publication of the Palatine manu- 
 script, and the attention and careful study which it called
 
 (5 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 forth from German scholars, who generally do thoroughly 
 whatever they undertake, threw a great deal of addi- 
 tional light on this branch of literature. These studies, 
 pursued with much ardour by various scholars, have in 
 a special manner brought into conspicuous notice the 
 name of Meleager, the first and most considerable of the 
 jl'iin-r-yatherers, for such is the English equivalent for 
 the word "anthologist." He was a Syrian, and flourished 
 in the early part of the century preceding the com- 
 mencement of our era. He collected the fragments of 
 Greek poetryand genius which before his time were either 
 intrusted to the memories of men, engraven on marbles 
 or other solid structures, or dispersed in miscellaneous 
 works as fugitive pieces. These he named his " Gar- 
 land," and prefixed to it, as a preface or procemium, a 
 set of verses extending to nearly GO lines, in which he 
 characterises each or the principal part of the writers 
 included in his collection by a flower or plant emble- 
 matical of his or her peculiar genius. But Meleager 
 was not merely a collector, he was ulso a composer, of 
 epigrams, and his compositions may take a high place 
 in comparison with the average or all but the best of 
 those inserted in his " Garland." His character seems 
 to have been a remarkable one, not free fro.'ii great 
 faults, ardent in his passions, and acute in his sus- 
 ceptibilities, but with a high idea of the dignity of the 
 poet's art, and a lively and just appreciation of the 
 Px'autiful. Another collector after Meleager was Phil- 
 ippic of Thessalonica, Avho lived in the time of Tra- 
 jan, and who also contributed some original epigrams 
 and prefixed a proem to his collection. Finally, there
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 came Agathias, already mentioned, the last of the 
 ancient anthologists, whose collection was entitled a 
 " Cycle " or Circle of poetical compositions, and who 
 himself, like his predecessors, contributed some original 
 epigrams, not indeed equal to those of Meleager, but 
 yet not destitute of tuste and elegance. Contribu- 
 tions to his collection were also supplied by his con- 
 temporary and friend, Paul the Silentiary, who at the 
 court of Justinian held an office in some degree corre- 
 sponding to that of Gentleman usher. 
 
 Generally speaking, the space of time over which 
 the writers of the Greek epigrams successively 
 HouiisheJ may be said to extend to upwards of a 
 thousand years from Simonides, if we call him the 
 earliest, down to Agathias as the latest of them 
 a period, undoubtedly, of very long duration for a 
 language and literature to retain such a wonderful 
 vitality, and, amidst some fallings off, a certain simi- 
 larity of style and character. It might be doubted if 
 some of the latest of these writers deserved the name 
 of Classical in the highest sense of the term. But 
 Agathias, the last in the list, has so well caught the 
 ancient spirit, that it would be harsh to exclude him. 
 After his era the degeneracy of the literature became 
 unmistakable. 
 
 None of these more ancient collections descended 
 entire to modern times, and we know them mainly in 
 the compilations formed from them successively by 
 Cephalasandby Planudes. The nameof "Anthology" L< 
 still employed on the same principle on which Meleager 
 originally regarded his collections as wreaths or gar
 
 8 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 lands, the poems composing it being assimilated to 
 flowers of varied kinds and hues. The individual 
 poems have been called Epigrams, a term which 
 originally and literally denoted simply an Inscription, 
 though the word was in process of time transferred to 
 a different class of compositions and perhaps it might 
 have been convenient to have two words, epigram and 
 ej>i(/raj>h, to note the distinction. 
 
 The tendencies of the Greek mind in originally 
 building up this species of literature are well ex- 
 plained by Jacobs, the ablest and the most diligent 
 of the editors of the Anthologies. He speaks of the 
 ancient Greeks as the most religious of men ; using 
 the epithet, as we conceive, in a favourable sense, to 
 designate that feeling of dependence and gratitude 
 towards divine power which, however alloyed by a 
 mixture of superstition and a leaning to sensuous 
 forms of worship, had in it much of the essence of a 
 true piety. In this spirit he tells us that, referring 
 to the gods all events, whether prosperous or adverse, 
 they were accustomed, when their wars had been suc- 
 cessfully concluded and their enemies subdued, to set 
 apart a portion of their booty or of its profits to the 
 honour of those deities to whose protection they 
 thought that they owed the victory, as well as to dedi- 
 cate to them in their temples and shrines the arms of 
 which their enemies were stripped. This, he con- 
 siders, was the oldest form of offerings and inscrip- 
 tions, and others of an analogous kind were gradually 
 added. Prizes won in public games, or some equiva- 
 lent for them, were dedicated by the victors to the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 gods who patronised them. The old soldier conse- 
 crated the weapons and armour he was no longer fit or 
 likely to use. Mechanics and labourers did so in like 
 manner with the implements of their industry, when 
 these were worn out, or when the owners changed 
 their own employments. Even playthings, when laid 
 aside, were thus dedicated, a common feeling of 
 affectionate remembrance prompting the owners to 
 place them under the protection of a temple, rather 
 than leave them exposed to the rude accidents of 
 chance or neglect. Moral sentences came to he put up 
 as inscriptions on statues or memorial columns ; and 
 we read of a desire shown by the Pisistratidie to dis- 
 seminate in this way prudential maxims or impressive 
 truths by inscribing them in verse upon the Herman, 
 or busts of Mercury, which formed their milestones or 
 landmarks. It is needless to say that inscriptions on 
 tombs were a natural and obvious mode of preserving 
 the memory of the dead and recording the alfection of 
 the living. 
 
 The workings of the Greek character, as tending in 
 these many ways to embody and perpetuate the national 
 feeling of rude and sometimes, as it almost seems, of 
 infantine piety, are nowhere better analysed and de- 
 scribed than in those well-known passages in Words- 
 worth's " Excursion " which it is unnecessary to quote, 
 where he deals with the genesis of natural religion in 
 different countries and under different circumstances. 
 These feelings, as Wordsworth shows in a continua- 
 tion of the same passage, led them to look at the more 
 beautiful or striking scenes of nature and natural
 
 10 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 objects as animated by some spiritual essence that 
 could be reverenced and addressed, and hence their 
 affectionate consecration of their rivers, hills, and 
 groves to the deities or semi-deities under whose care 
 they seemed to be placed. 
 
 " ' Take, running river, take these locks of mine,' 
 Thus would the Votary say 'this severed hair, 
 My vow fulfilling, do I here present, 
 Thankful for my beloved child's return.' " 
 
 All of these impulses are exhibited in the poems 
 of the Anthology, which thus acquire an additional 
 interest from the light they throw upon the manners, 
 customs, and beliefs of this remarkable people. The 
 wide range of topics embraced in the anthologies has 
 been well depicted by De Bosch in some Latin lines 
 to the memory of Grotius, printed in his edition of 
 the Anthology, in which Grotius's translations first 
 appeared, and which we venture . thus to render in 
 some of its most striking parts : 
 
 Whoe'er delights in themes from history's page, 
 
 These varied studies will his thirst assuage ; 
 
 Here sacred bards their liberal aid bestow 
 
 The fates of gods and goddesses to show ; 
 
 Wisdom may sometimes wear a louk austere, 
 
 But smiles and jests are oft her helpmates here ; 
 
 Venus and every Grace for victory vie, 
 
 And fast the Idalian darts of Cupid fly. 
 
 By disc or javelin now the prize is won, 
 
 On horseback or on foot the race is run. 
 
 The graceful Muse has here concisely sung 
 
 The charms that woman sends from eye or tongue ;
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 What men have done she gives to understand, 
 Whose zeal has saved or raised their native land. 
 
 Cities, that in the dust long buried lie, 
 
 Bear in their ancient seats their heads on high. 
 
 Traces of shrines and temples seem to stand 
 
 Heaped with large gifts from many a pious hand. 
 
 The sml laments of friends now strike our ears ; 
 
 Our eyes now see the child's, the parent's tears. 
 
 We hear the widow's wail, when doomed to mourn 
 
 A loved one lost, and clasp his lifeless urn. 
 
 Lessons of wisdom open to our view 
 
 In all life's varied scenes of gay or gloomy hue. 
 
 The inscriptions that existed in Greece were innumer- 
 able. Even those that still remain, either in their 
 original sites or removed to munificent libraries or 
 museums, are very numerous, and we have the terms 
 of many more preserved in ancient books. But it is 
 not every epigram that can claim a place in an Antho- 
 logy. It must for that purpose be an antJios or flower, 
 possessing an attraction from some beauty or elegance, 
 from some ingenuity or elevation of sentiment. Many 
 inscriptions of great historical interest are thus ex- 
 cluded. It is interesting to read in Plutarch of the 
 pillar that Theseus is said to have erected on the 
 Isthmus of Corinth to mork the boundary between 
 Attica and the Peloponnesus. On one side of it were 
 the words, "This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia;" 
 on the other, "This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia;" 
 of which ancient inscription an imitation was put up 
 on Hadrian's arch at Athens, dividing the older town
 
 12 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 from the part that the Eoman emperor had reno- 
 vated : 
 
 " This Athens is the primitive town of Theseus. 
 This is the town of Adrian, not of Theseus." 
 
 Still more interesting is it to read the very words of 
 that inscription to which Milton so touchingly refers 
 in his sonnet, beginning, " Captain or colonel, or knight 
 in arms " when he entreats that his " defenceless 
 doors " may be preserved from harm amidst the civil 
 disturbances : 
 
 " Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower : 
 The great Emathian Conqueror bid spare 
 The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower 
 Went to the ground." 
 
 The actual inscription by which Alexander the Great 
 preserved Pindar's house, when Thebes was given over 
 to be sacked by his soldiers, has been preserved by 
 some ancient antiquaries, and runs thus : 
 
 "Of Pindarus the poet do not burn the house." 
 
 Again, on the base of the wonderful statue of Olympian 
 Jove, the name of the sculptor was thus inscribed in 
 an hexameter line, at what time does not appear : 
 
 "Phidias, Charmides' son, the Athenian citizen, made 
 ME." 
 
 A startling inscription, and involving a strange mixture 
 of ideas ! The statue is made to speak as a person, and 
 thus almost becomes the god himself, and yet this god 
 describes the artist as having made him. How diffi-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 cult to reconcile this fact with what is told of Stilpo 
 the philosopher, that he was banished by the Areopagus 
 for saying that the Miru-rva in the Citadel of Athens 
 was no divinity, but the work of Phidias the sculptor ! 
 But interesting as these inscriptions are, they do not 
 belong to an anthology. Even those of them that have 
 a metrical form are too much mere matter-of-fact to 
 have a place in a Garland. 
 
 It should here be added that the parentage of indi- 
 vidual epigrams is often very uncertain. We know 
 generally what poets had places in Meleager's and 
 rhilippus's collections, from the enumeration of their 
 names in the proems. But we are still in doubt as to 
 tin' individual poems which they wrote, and often tin-re 
 are a variety of persons of the same name who wrote 
 poems not easily distinguishable. In this perplexity 
 we are often driven to resort to internal evidem-e, 
 which is not always a safe guide, though on the whole 
 it may keep us from any great blunder. In genual, 
 the simpler and more natural the composition is, if it 
 has genius at all, the more likely it is to be an ancient 
 and original inscription. 
 
 The Greek Anthology, therefore, in its largest sense 
 swelled as it has been by contributions from various 
 sources may now be considered as consisting, not 
 merely of the collections of Cephalas and Planudes, but 
 also of a large number of other short poems deserving the 
 name, of epigrams or epigraphs, found scattered about 
 among the old Greek historians, biographers, and mis- 
 cellaneous writers, and which it is likely that Meleager, 
 Philippus, or Agathias, if \ve had them entire, would
 
 14 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 be found to have inserted in their collections, or might 
 reasonably have done so. But the longer and more elab- 
 orate compositions, not of an inscriptional character, 
 ought perhaps to be excluded from this class, though 
 it is not always easy to draw the line, and most of the 
 modern editors of the Greek Anthology have occasion- 
 ally overstepped the limit. 
 
 We have already indicated that the primitive Greek 
 epigram differs much from the modern idea attached 
 to the word. From the time of Martial, indeed, the 
 epigram came to be characterised generally by that 
 peculiar point or sting, which we -now look for in a 
 French or English epigram ; and the want of this in the 
 old Greek compositions doubtless led some minds to 
 think them tame and tasteless. The true or the best 
 form of the early Greek epigram does not aim at wit 
 or seek to produce surprise. Its purpose is to set 
 forth in the shortest, simplest, and plainest language, 
 but yet with perfect purity and even elegance of dic- 
 tion, some fact or feeling of such interest as would 
 prompt the real or supposed speaker to record it in the 
 form of an epigram ; though it is true that, particularly 
 in the later period of epigrammatic writing, these com- 
 positions, even among the Greeks, assumed a greater 
 variety of aspect, and were employed as the vehicle of 
 satire or ridicule, as a means of producing hilarity and 
 mirth. A good many of the epigrammatists flourished 
 in or after the age of Martial, and may have followed or 
 co-operated with him to produce this change of style. 
 
 It seems of great importance at the present time to 
 recall attention to these early monuments of genius
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 and taste. They are highly characteristic of the 
 Greek mind, which in those compositions that did not 
 deal with fervid or majestic expression, looked to the 
 combination of perfect simplicity with perfect beauty 
 as their true ideal ; and this, in great things or in little, 
 in sculpture or in poetry, in the statue that enchants 
 the world or the epigraph that in a few lines has 
 power to touch the heart or please the fancy. Much 
 of these excellences, particularly of diction, must be 
 lost in translation, as the structure of the classical 
 languages, especially the Greek, afforded facilities for 
 condensation and elegance unattainable in English. 
 Even the attempt, however, to imitate this character, 
 may help to purify the taste, in an age when the poet 
 is not always free from obscurity, when the art of 
 concealing art seems not often practised, when con- 
 densation is not thought of, and simplicity is con- 
 sidered to be insipidity. 
 
 The first serious attempt to exhibit the true char- 
 acter of the Greek epigram in English translation was 
 in the papers which appeared in ' Blackwood's ^I,i-a- 
 zine 1 in the years 1833 and 1834, from the pen of 
 Professor "Wilson, assisted by many friends, and par- 
 ticularly by Mr William Hay, who for some years de- 
 voted much of his scholarship and powers of versifica- 
 tion to this task. The effort thus made was eminently 
 successful, and has tended very much to throw into the 
 shade the more vague and diffuse versions which 
 had proceeded from previous translators, including 
 even Elton, and Bland and Merivale, to whom, how- 
 ever, we owe a df-o debt of gratitude for doing so
 
 16 TIIE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 much to revive, in the present century, a taste for this 
 species of poetry. 
 
 It is not easy to determine in what order composi- 
 tions of this kind should be treated. On the whole, 
 it seems best not to deal with them chronologically, or 
 even according to the authors to whom they are attri- 
 buted, which is often a matter of difficulty, in conse- 
 quence of the authorship being doubtful. It seems a 
 preferable course to divide them into classes, and in this 
 way to keep together epigrams of the same character, 
 which will facilitate comparison. The classes into 
 which we shall divide them are these : 1, Dedicatory ; 
 2, Sepulchral ; 3, Amatory ; 4, Didactic ; 5, Literary 
 and Artistic ; 6, Witty and Satirical ; 7, .Narrative 
 and Miscellaneous.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PEDICATOBT. 
 
 WE proceed to give select specimens of epigrams, 
 beginning with the class that may be called Dedicatory 
 or Votive. These all involve the common idea that 
 something is consecrated or offered up to some divine 
 power ; and it is thought that under this division may 
 le, and ought properly to be introduced, among other 
 varieties, the monumental records of victories and 
 remarkable public events, where the monument is 
 truly considered as made sacred by the greatness of 
 the subject, and by the intention thereby to show 
 gratitude to the gods for benefits received. 
 
 Ranging as these epigrams do over so great a por- 
 tion of time, there is one feature in which they may 
 materially differ from each other. Some of them have 
 been actual inscriptions, while others are mere literary 
 exercises or compositions of such a kind as might be 
 appropriately inscribed to celebrate any memorable 
 achievement or occurrence. These diversities in the 
 epigrams will necessarily tell upon their internal 
 character, for in an actual inscription the poet may 
 dispense with any detail as to those things that are 
 patent to the eye. The reader of such an epigram or 
 
 A. c. voL xx. B
 
 18 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 epigraph on the spot, does not need to be told where 
 it is erected, or on what material it is inscribed ; he 
 has merely to learn the subject, the occasion, and the 
 author or orderer of the inscription. But an epigram 
 that is a mere literary production, while it does all 
 this, must also do more, and tell the reader something 
 as to the place and position in which the imaginary 
 inscription is to be supposed to have been put up. 
 
 Of these two kinds of epigram it is needless to say 
 that the first is the more ancient, and will also in gen- 
 eral be found to be the shorter, the simpler, and the 
 more direct of the two. Some critics think that the 
 fictitious, or imaginary inscription, was not known or 
 practised before the time of Alexander the Great ; but 
 be that as it may, the real inscription, of which many 
 specimens have been preserved, is certainly more in- 
 teresting and valuable, as it also is, generally speaking, 
 more vigorous and lifelike, than the other kind. 
 
 Of the composers of ancient epigrams that were 
 actual epigraphs, the most remarkable is Simonides of 
 Ceos, particularly if we look to the number as well as 
 to the merit of his compositions. His birth is placed, 
 by Clinton, in the year 556 B.C., and his death in 
 467, in the 90th year of his age. He is the same to 
 whom Wordsworth refers in those beautiful lines : 
 
 " ye, who patiently explore 
 The wreck of Herculanean lore. 
 
 What rapture could ye seize 
 Some Theban fragment, or unroll 
 One precious tender-hearted scroll 
 
 Of pure Simonides !"
 
 DEDICATORY. 19 
 
 Some of the pieces bearing the name of this author 
 may be the productions of other and inferior artists ; 
 for three of the name, at least, attained distinction 
 as poets, and the family had a professional and 
 hereditary connec+'^n with twef-ry and musical re- 
 presentation. Iii ih gieat oiruoijides the fire of 
 patriotism, or at least the power of expressing it, 
 burned with so bright a glow, that it is difficult to 
 mistake his compositions on such subjects. But 
 they are also distinguished by much simplicity and 
 compression, as well as by great sobriety and purity of 
 thought. " When young," we are told in Dr Smith's 
 Biography, " he formed a part of the brilliant literary 
 circle which Hipparchus collected at his court. In 
 advanced life he enjoyed the personal friendship of 
 Themistocles and Pausanias, and celebrated their ex- 
 ploits: and in his extreme old age he found an hon- 
 oured retreat at the court of Syracuse." The resi- 
 dence of Simonides at Syracuse is particularly memor- 
 able for two things. It was he who, as Cicero tells 
 us in his ' Nature of the Gods,' was asked by Hiero 
 who or what God was, when he requested a day's 
 time to think of his answer. On subsequent days 
 he always doubled the period required for deliber- 
 ation ; and when Hiero inquired the reason, he replied 
 that the longer he considered the subject, the more 
 obscure it appeared. The other circumstance to 
 which we refer is, that Xenophon in his ' Hiero ' intro- 
 duces him as the person to whom the Sicilian lyrant 
 unbosoms himself as to the miseries and (lungers of 
 that " bad eminence." On turning to the volume on
 
 20 THK GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Xenophon in this series, our readers will be able to 
 judge of the estimation in which Simonides must have 
 been held for sagacity and wisdom. He seems to 
 have been the first inventor of what is called Mne- 
 monics, or the science of Artificial Memory. 
 
 Two events are mentioned as having occurred 
 to Simonides, which have rather a fabulous air. It 
 is said that having given burial to a dead body 
 which lay exposed on the sea- shore an act which 
 was held among the Greeks to be an indispensable 
 duty of humanity the dead man appeared to him in a 
 dream, and warned him not to go on board of a certain 
 vessel in which he had intended to sail, and that by 
 following this advice his life was saved, as the vessel 
 was lost on her voyage. 
 
 On this subject an epigram is preserved, which runs 
 thus, having reference to some supposed representation 
 of his dream : 
 
 " The Saviour of Simonides, the Ceian, here you see, 
 Who, dead, repaid the living man an act of piety." 
 
 His life was again saved on another occasion in this 
 way. He had written a eulogistic poem upon the 
 Thessalian prince, Scopas, for which he was to receive 
 a certain remuneration. He had introduced into the 
 poem, also, some laudatory verses on the Dioscuri 
 (Castor tind Pollux), and Scopas, on settling the trans- 
 action, refused to pay him more than a half of the 
 stipulated sum, telling him to apply to the Dioscuri 
 for the other half. Soon afterwards, when Simonides 
 was present in the house of Scopas, he was told that
 
 DEDICATORY. 21 
 
 two young men wished to speak with him, and going 
 to the door he saw no one ; but while gazing around 
 him in astonishment, the house which lie had just left 
 fell, and killed Scopas and the other guests, while 
 Simonides was saved. 
 
 As already mentioned, Simonides was a professional 
 poet, and, as Bcntley irreverently says, one of " a 
 string," including Pindar, that got their livelihood 
 by the Muses. It is certain that he would be largely 
 ivmunmitcd from the public treasury for his his- 
 torical epigrams, just as the Italian poet Sannazaro 
 got from the Venetian Senate 600 ducats for his 
 epigram of six lines on the beauty of Venice. But it 
 may be inferred, from their brevity and condensation, 
 that the payment of Simonides would be measured 
 rather by the merits than by the length of his com- 
 positions. 
 
 Many of his short poems were written in celebration 
 of victories gained at the public games of Greece, and 
 for these, no doubt, he would also be liberally paid. 
 Aristotle tells a story of him, that upon being asked 
 to celebrate fora trilling remuneration a victory gained 
 in a mule-race, he declined, upon the ground that it 
 was beneath the dignity of the Muse to praise the off- 
 spring of an ass ; but that, upon the terms being in- 
 creased, he dignified the subjects of his song by desig- 
 nating the mules as the daughters of "storm-footed 
 steeds ; " choosing thus to elevate them by a reference 
 to their generous mothers, rather than to degrade them 
 by speaking of their ignoble sires. 
 
 One of the earliest of the epigrams made by Simo-
 
 22 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 nides upon a public event had reference to the erection 
 of an image of the god Pan in connection with the 
 battle of Marathon. 
 
 The circumstances which gave rise to this event are 
 these : The Athenians, when they marched towards 
 Marathon to meet the enemy, sent off a messenger of 
 noted speed to require instant succour from Sparta. 
 The Athenian courier, as Thirlwall tells the story, 
 travelling with breathless haste, reached Sparta the 
 next day after he had left Athens. The Spartans did 
 not refuse assistance ; but they did not feel the urgency 
 of the juncture, and dismissed the messenger with 
 promises of distant succour. On rejoining his felloAV- 
 citi/ens, he announced to them assurances of aid from 
 an invisible hand. As he crossed the top of the 
 mountains that separate Argolis from Arcadia, the 
 g(d Pan, he said, had called him by his name, and 
 had bidden him cheer the Athenians with a gracious 
 reproach for having neglected the worship of a deity 
 who had often befriended them in time past, and 
 would prove his goodwill toward them yet again. In 
 reference to these occurrences, and in allusion to the 
 panic which he was supposed to have created in the 
 1 Vivian army, the statue of Pan seems to have been 
 KM led by Miltiades, for which the epigram by Simo- 
 nides was written. 
 
 The closest translation we can find is here given, 
 being confined, as the original is, to a single couplet : 
 
 " Me, goat-foot Tan, tlie Amid the Modes' fear, 
 The Athenians' friend Miltiu les placed here."
 
 DEDICATORY. 23 
 
 It will be noticed that, with all its brevity, this epi- 
 gram states every circumstance necessary to make the 
 story intelligible. The name of the god is given, and 
 his deformed aspect is mentioned as the means by 
 which he was the better able to strike terror where he 
 wished to do so. His country of Arcadia is named, 
 as enlisting his sympathies in behalf of Greece ; his 
 enmity to the Medes, and his friendship for the 
 Athenians, are celebrated, as having led to the erection 
 of his statue; and, finally, the name of the general is 
 recorded by whom the dedication was made. 
 
 A still more celebrated epigram by Simonides refers 
 to the battle of Thermopylae ; and it is a striking fact 
 that the same poet who, when an elderly man, had 
 celebrated the victory at Marathon, the first struggle 
 with the Persians, should be called upon ten years 
 afterwards, and should still retain sufficient poetical 
 power, to record the chief events of the second Persian 
 invasion. The epigram to which we refer has been 
 often translated.. There are eighteen English versions 
 of it in the article on the Anthology in ' Blackwood's 
 Magazine,'* all of them good, but we select the ver- 
 sion by Bowles, which Christopher North there says is 
 the best, " and is perfect." The epigram, it will be 
 seen, has a special reference to the Spartans who fell 
 at Thermopylae along with their king, Leonidas, whose 
 march to that place was impelled probably by a feel- 
 ing in their government that as Athens had gained the 
 victory at Marathon without assistance from the Pelo- 
 
 * Vol. xxxiv. p. 970.
 
 24 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 ponnesus, it was now Sparta's turn to take the lead. 
 This is the epigram : 
 
 " Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, 
 That here, obedient to their laws, we lie." 
 
 There happens to be a various reading in the second 
 line of the Greek, which makes it doubtful whether 
 the expression used was " laws " or " words." Cicero, 
 who translated the epigram, seems to have read 
 " laws ; " but the idea is the same, as either term 
 was probably intended to indicate the institutions 
 of Sparta. 
 
 Christopher North says as to this noble epigram : 
 " Tis but two lines, and all Greece for centuries had 
 them by heart. She forgot them, and Greece was 
 living Greece no more." The lines indeed, simple as 
 they are, contain the very essence of those elements 
 which go to make military virtue and patriotic fidelity. 
 We do not underrate the love of glory or the sense of 
 honour in war, or in public service of any kind. We 
 may admire that class of warriors whom the English 
 poet thus addresses : 
 
 " On, ye brave, 
 Who rush to glory, or the grave ! " 
 
 But these are not the highest feelings that should enter 
 into a soldier's career. Obedience to lawful supreme 
 command is the life-blood of military virtue ; and this 
 epigram, as well as the noble act which it records, 
 illustrates that truth. The combatants at Thermopylae 
 are not made to boast of their courage; what they ask 
 the passer-by to announce at home is, that they lie
 
 DEDICATORY. 25 
 
 there in obedience to the laws or commands of their 
 countrymen. They were sent out to stand in the 
 gap in defence of Greece against the myriads of Asia, 
 and were bid to die rather than retreat. They did so, 
 and that is the simple report which they wish to bo 
 conveyed to Sparta. The effect of what they did cor- 
 responded with the virtue which the deed displayed, 
 by shaking the confidence of the enemy and animating 
 (Ireek courage, not only at the time, and during that 
 crisis, but in Slilwequent and similar dangers in after- 
 ages. This virtue of obedience, it is thought, is the 
 great distinction which gives pre-eminence to one 
 military nation over another. If wo find that of two 
 nations, one has its fighting men animated mainly by 
 a love of glory, and the other mainly by a sense of 
 dutj r , we may easily predict on which side the ulti- 
 mate victory will be. In the two greatest warriors of 
 the present century, the sense of duty was the para- 
 mount feeling, both in their own minds, and as im- 
 pressed by them upon their followers. Neither ot 
 them can have Toeen indifferent to fame, but duty is 
 what they both preached and practised. On the last 
 day of Nelson's life, and, we may add, the last day 
 (for the time) of the existence of a French navy, the 
 watchword for the fight reminded the Fleet of what 
 was expected of the men, to dc their duty ; that was 
 all, but that was enough. Nelson fell, while England 
 had the reward of victory. It is this simple rule 
 which prompts the exertions of the true soldier, de- 
 scribed in Wolfe's favourite song as one "whose busi- 
 ness 'tis to die." This Spartan obedience, which
 
 26 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Simouides long ago celebrated, is that virtue which 
 will in all times gain the ascendant both in war and 
 in peace. 
 
 The number of Spartans at Thermopylae is generally 
 said to have been three hundred, exclusive of the 
 Helots ; and the total number of Greeks accompanying 
 the Spartans would be a few thousands. The dis- 
 parity between this handful and the number of the 
 Persians was sufficiently great to give rise to the follow- 
 ing simple but expressive epigram, which is to be found 
 recorded in Herodotus, and which is also ascribed to 
 Simonides : 
 
 "Four thousand men Peloponnesus brought, 
 Who 'gainst three hundred myriads nobly fought." 
 
 The chief epigram that we have given in con- 
 nection with Thermopylas has reference to men who 
 had fallen in the battle. But this does not make the 
 composition an ordinary epitaph. Its tone is not 
 mournful, but triumphant. It is not a dirge, but a 
 prean appropriate to the death of heroes, of that little 
 " remnant of the Greeks," who, as Thirl wall describes 
 them, " armed only with a few swords, stood a butt 
 for the arrows, the javelins, and the stones of the 
 enemy, which at length overwhelmed them. Where 
 they fell they were afterwards buried; their tomb, as 
 Simonides sings, was an altar, a sanctuary in which 
 Greece revered the memory of her second founders." 
 The language of Simonides, here referred to, occurs in 
 the fragment of a hymn to the Spartans who fell at 
 Thf.rmopylsje, and may be thus translated:
 
 DEDICATORY. 27 
 
 " Of those at lamed Thermopylae who lie, 
 Glorious the fortune, bright the destiny. 
 Their tomb an altar is; their noble name 
 A fond remembrance of ancestral fame. 
 Their death, a song of triumph ; neither rust 
 Nor time, that turns all mortal things to dust, 
 Shall dim the splendour of that holy shrine, 
 Where Greece for ever sees her native virtues shine." 
 
 These epigrams, on the Spartans generally, were by 
 public authority inscribed on pillars in their honour ; 
 while another epigram is also mentioned by Herodotus 
 as an individual tribute to Megistias, a noble-hearted 
 Spiirtan, whose sagacity had gained him the reputa- 
 tion of a prophet. Being in the camp at Thermopylae 
 with Leonidas, and both of them being certain of the 
 impending fate of the Grecian force there assembled, 
 Leonidas gave him his dismissal, that they might not 
 both perish. Megistias, however, refused to go, but 
 sent away his only son, who was serving with him in 
 the army. He himself perished in the fight, and Hero- 
 dotus expret-sly tells us that Simonides made this epi- 
 gram upon the soothsayer in consequence of the relation 
 of hospitality existing between them : 
 
 " Of famed Megistias hen- lie-hold the tomb, 
 
 Slain by the Medes who crossed Spercheiis' tide ; 
 A Seer, who well foresaw his coming doom, 
 But would not leave his Spartan leader's side." 
 
 The name of Themistocles is so much identified 
 with the final defeat of the 1'eivian invaders, that 
 those epigrams which relate to him appear appro- 
 priately to come r.nder consideration at this place. His
 
 28 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 life and fate afford a strange proof of the incon- 
 sistencies of human character, or of the inconstancy of 
 popular feeling. Notwithstanding the boundless bene- 
 fits which he had conferred upon Athens, his country- 
 men proved ungrateful ; though that ingratitude might 
 find some excuse in his own imprudence in boasting 
 of his conduct, and ostentatiously asserting his merits, 
 as well as in some delinquencies by which he was said 
 to have derived benefit from his public administra- 
 tion. He was at last condemned to exile, and, strange 
 to say, found refuge at the court of Persia, where a 
 pension was conferred upon him, and the town of 
 Magnesia assigned him as a residence. He obtained 
 these favours apparently by promising to produce some 
 plan for aggrandising the Persians at the expense of 
 his own country. But whether in this he was playing 
 false with the barbarians, or really entertained un- 
 patriotic designs against Greece, seems to be a matter 
 on which different opinions may prevail. At his 
 death a splendid monument was raised to him in the 
 public place of Magnesia, but a tomb was also pointed 
 out in the Pineus at Athens, to which his bones were 
 supposed to have been privately conveyed. 
 
 However splendid in other respects his tomb at 
 Magnesia might be, it was not likely to set forth his 
 achievements against the Persians, within whose terri- 
 tory it lay. The following epigram was composed as 
 if to supply this defect, and is attributed to Philij.pus 
 the Anthologist : 
 
 " Trace on my toml> the mountains and the sea, 
 And let the all-seeing Sun a witness be :
 
 DEDICATORY. 29 
 
 Trace, too, the streams, whose aeep and copious course 
 Xerxes dried up with his unnumbered force. 
 Add Salamis ; and make the shrine, that stands > 
 Reared to my memory by Magncsian hands, 
 Such as Themistocles' high fame demands." 
 
 Another by Geminus, in the same style, begins with 
 these words : 
 
 " Give me no grave but Greece ;" 
 
 but afterwards proceeds much as that of Philippus 
 does : though it would appear that Philippus here was 
 the plagiarist. 
 
 A few more epigrams by different authors will dis- 
 miss the subject of Greek history as far as it seems 
 necessary to dwell upon it here. Several of these 
 bear the name of Simonides, but a reference to the 
 chronology of the events which they commemorate 
 shows that they must be r^efa-red to a younger relative 
 of the name. 
 
 The first relates to the double victory gained by the 
 Athenian general Cimon over the Persians on the same 
 day both by sea and land, an event which happened 
 in the year following that in which Simonides is said 
 to have died. The translation we give is by Meri- 
 vale : 
 
 ' Ne'er since that olden time when Asia stood 
 First torn from Europe by the ocean n*ood, 
 Since horrid Mars first poured on either shore 
 The storm of buttle and its wild uproar, 
 II nth man by land and sea such glory won, 
 As for the mighty deed this day was done.
 
 30 THE GREEK AST110LOGY. 
 
 By land, the Modes in myriads press the ground ; 
 By sea, a hundred Tyrian ships are drowned, 
 With all their martial host ; while Asia stands 
 Deep groaning by, and wrings her helpless hands." 
 
 This double victory is the event to which Pope 
 satirically alludes in the " Dunciad," by comparing to 
 it a Lord Mayor's procession by land and water : 
 
 " 'Twas on the day when . . . rich and grave, 
 Like Cimon, triumphed both on land and wave." 
 
 The next epigram, also translated by Merivale, 
 relates to the same day's events, and may probably be 
 ascribed in like manner to the younger Simonides. 
 
 ON THOSE WHO FELL AT THE EURYMEDON. 
 " These by the streams of famed Eurymedon, 
 Their envied youth's short brilliant race have run' 
 In swift-winged ships, and on the embattled field, 
 Alike they forced the Median bows to yield, 
 Breaking their foremost ranks. Now here they lie, 
 Their names inscribed on rolls of victory." 
 
 A few more epigrams may here be given upon 
 Marathon and Thermopylae, and the Persian invasion 
 generally. The first is by the Simonides, the rest by 
 miscellaneous writers : 
 
 " Nobly to die ! if that be virtue's crown, 
 Fortune to us her bounty well displayed. 
 
 Striving to make Greece free, we gained renown 
 That shrouds us where we lie, and ne'er can fade." 
 
 " These to their country brought an endless name, 
 When death's dark cloud around themselves they drew ; 
 Nor dying, did they die : their virtue's fame 
 From Hades brings them back to live anew."
 
 DEDICATORY. 31 
 
 The next epigram th.it we come to appears in two 
 forms ; in one as a single couplet, in another as con- 
 sisting of an addition that extends it to six lines. 
 The first couplet may be enough to give. The peculiar 
 phrase in the first line corresponds to a Grek pro- 
 verbial expression used to denote any crisis or import- 
 ant turning-point in human affairs. 
 
 " When on a razor's edge all Hellas stood, 
 We, who lie here, preserved her with our blood. 
 
 The epigram that follows has reference to the 
 victory gained over the Persians at Plataja, on which 
 occasion the lines are said to have been inscribed on 
 the altar of the Eleutherian Jove (Jove the deliverer), 
 near to which solemn sacrifices in honour of that deity 
 were for a long time periodically offered up. 
 
 " Here, when the Greeks, by strength of heart and hand, 
 Had driven tin- IVrsiims from the Hellenic land, 
 A record of delivered Greece to prove, 
 They raised this shrine to the Deliverer, Jove." 
 
 This is an inscription for a trophy in the temple of 
 Minerva, obviously referable to the Persian Avar ; the 
 translation is from Eland's collection : 
 
 " From wounds and death they rest this bow and quiver, 
 Beneath Minerva's holy roof for ever : 
 Once did their shafts along the battle speed, 
 And drink the life-blood of the charging Mede." 
 
 This is by an unknown author : 
 
 " Miltiadee, the Persians all thy warlike prowess found, 
 And by thy virtue, Marathon is consecrated ground."
 
 32 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 This is by Parmenio, in reference to Xerxes' mar- 
 vellous exertions : 
 
 " Him who reversed the laws that Nature gave, 
 Sailed o'er the land, and walked upon the wave, 
 Mars? with three hundred spears from Sparta's plain, 
 Arrested : blush, ye mountains, and thou main ! " 
 
 This also is ascribed to Simonides, and is said to be 
 on the Corinthians who fell at Salamis : 
 
 " Well-watered Corinth was our home before ; 
 We lie on Salamis' Aiantian shore. 
 The ships of Tyre, the Persian, and the Mede 
 We routed, and thus holy Greece we freed." 
 
 What follows next is a singular epigram, also by 
 Simonides, referring to supplications offered up to 
 Venus by her Corinthian votaries for the safety of 
 Greece against the Persian invasion ; in remembrance 
 of which, at the end of the war, the Corinthians are 
 said to have dedicated to the goddess a painted 
 tablet : 
 
 " These divine women to fair Venus prayed 
 To give the straggling friends of Greece her aid ; 
 And She the Greek Acropolis decreed 
 Not to yield up to the bow-bearing Mede." 
 
 The patriotic spirit displayed by these ladies would 
 probably make Simonides somewhat indulgent to any 
 defects in their private or public character. 
 
 As we are about to leave Simonides for the present, 
 it may not be out of place here to comment upon the 
 blame which has been attached to his conduct in con- 
 nection with the family of Pisistratus. Notwitlistand-
 
 DEDICATORY. 33 
 
 ing the kindness that he had received from Hipparchus 
 and his brother, and the friendship that subsisted be- 
 tween them and him, he allowed himself to celebrate 
 the assassination of Hipparchus (for it deserves no 
 other name), in a well-known epigram, which may be 
 thus translated : 
 
 " Truly a great light met the Athenians' view, 
 What time his sword Aristogiton drew, 
 And, with Harmodius' help, Hipparchus slew." 
 
 Blamable as this may appear, there may have been 
 excuses for Simonides's conduct which are not fully 
 manifest. He may have seen or thought that the Athe- 
 nian genius required for its full development greater 
 fivcdom than was afforded by an absolute Government ; 
 or lie may have seen in the individual rulers faults of 
 character which were dangerous to liberty. Hippias, 
 after his brother's death, became a ruthless tyrant ; 
 and when he was himself displaced, his conduct in 
 joining the Persians, and in instigating and assisting 
 to organise their invasion of Attica, showed him to be 
 destitute of true magnanimity, principle, or patriotism. 
 
 The feeling of the Athenians, as excited by the vic- 
 tories which they gained over the Persian invaders, 
 and particularly their earliest triumph at Marathon, 
 were of a striking character. They seem to have ex- 
 perienced little personal elation, and to have been 
 strongly impressed with the danger of indulging in 
 any self -laudation or assumption > personal merit. 
 Pagans as they were, they had something of that 
 'utmility which, under a nobler dispensation, iu- 
 
 A. c. vol. xx.
 
 34 TllK GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 spired the psalm of "Non nobis, Domine." "The 
 victory," as observed by Thirlwall, " was viewed by 
 the people as a deliverance which could not have 
 been effected by their own arm without the friendly 
 interposition of a higher power." Hence their dedica- 
 tion to Xemesis. Hence their belief in the interposi- 
 tion of Pan, and their erection of a statue to him. 
 "Hence the wonderful legends of the battle: the 
 valiant Epizelus is blinded in the heat of the tight 
 by the apparition of a warrior, whose shield is covered 
 by his flowing beard : the local heroes are active in 
 the combat ; and in the picture that represented it on 
 the walls of the Painted Porch, Theseus appeared 
 rising out of the ground with Marathon and Hercules; 
 and the hero Echetlus, armed with a ploughshare, was 
 seen dealing death among the flying barbarians : hence 
 to this day the field of Marathon is believed to be 
 haunted, as in the time of Pausanias, with spectral 
 warriors, and the shepherds are alarmed in the night 
 by their shouts, and by the neighing of their steeds." 
 
 Simonides, who so nobly celebrated these noble ex- 
 ploits, was not himself a soldier ; but vEschylus was 
 a soldier as well as a poet. He fought at Marathon ; 
 and there seems to have been a tradition that he com- 
 peted unsuccessfully with Simonides for an elegy on 
 those who fell in battle on that field. He died at an 
 advanced age at Gela, in Sicily, and is said to have 
 written an epitaph on himself which the inhabitants 
 of Gela inscribed on a monument erected in his honour. 
 The epitaph, of which a translation is here subjoined, 
 is remarkable for its making mention of his military
 
 DEDICATORY. 35 
 
 achievements without adverting to his literary suc- 
 cess : 
 
 "Athenian JSschylus, Euphorion's son, 
 This tomb at Gi-la holds, his race now run. 
 His deeds, the grove of Mural lion could tell, 
 And many a long-haired Median knows them well." 
 
 There also distinguished himself, at Marathon, a 
 brother of ./Eschylus, Cynegirus, another son of 
 Euphorion's. This man, who became an almost 
 fabulous hero of Greece, clung with his hands to the 
 side of a Persian vessel that was retreating, and, when 
 one hand was cut off, held on by the other till tint 
 also was severed, when he fell dead. The fame of 
 an action like this, as gallant at least as that of 
 Witherington in the ballad of " Chevy Chase," lost 
 nothing in the subsequent telling of it ; and the tradi- 
 tion came to be that, after his second hand was cut 
 off, he tried to stop the vessel with his teeth. The 
 following epigram was at a later period composed upon 
 a portrait of him by Phasis, which represented him 
 with both his hands : 
 
 " Blest Cynegirus, some think Phasis wrong 
 In giving you those hands, so stout and strong : 
 No ; lie was wise those hands to let us see 
 By which you gained your immortality." 
 
 Another of the pre-eminent heroes of Greece whose 
 reputation for bravery has been elevated to a proverbial 
 celebrity is the Spartan Othryades, who was one of 
 three hundred of his countrymen selected to fight with
 
 36 Til K GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 an equal number of Argives for the sovereignty of 
 Thyrea, a frontier town between Laconia and Argolis. 
 The battle was bravely contested on both sides, till 
 there remained only two of the Argives, who, believing 
 themselves to be the sole survivors of the six hundred, 
 returned to Argos to announce their victory. In fact, 
 however, Othryades, the last of the Spartans, though 
 struck down and bleeding, was still alive, and upon 
 the departure of the Argives collected together the 
 shields and weapons of the enemy, and erected or 
 hung them up as a trophy, surmounted with his own 
 shii-ld, on which he wrote in his blood the words, 
 "Thyrea, Jupiter, belongs to the Lacedemonians." 
 Upon this ground, as proving that Othryades had 
 kept the field when the Argives had either fallen or 
 fled, the Spartans claimed the victory, and successfully 
 maintained their right in a general battle. 
 
 Upon this event two epigrams are preserved, one 
 written as from the Spartan, the other as from the 
 Argive side of the question : 
 
 " When, native Sparta, the Inachian band 
 We fought, in numbers matched, for Thyrea's land, 
 Thy brave three hundred never turned aside, 
 But where our feet were planted there we died. 
 The words that on his shield Othryades, 
 Claiming the victory, wrote with blood were these : 
 ' Thyrea is Sparta's, Jove.' If it be said 
 That any Argive from that combat nod, 
 He owns Adrastus' kin : 'tis death to fly, 
 So Sparta deems : It is not death to die." 
 
 In the other epigram, as on the side of the Argives,
 
 DEDICATORY. 37 
 
 the two survivors are supposed to have returned to 
 the field, where they find the expiring Spartan lying 
 beside the trophy which he had set up, and which 
 their religious scruples prevented them from destroy- 
 
 " Who hung those new-ta'en arms upon the tree ? 
 What on this Dorian targe may written be ? 
 The Th\ rean ground with hostile blood is dyed, 
 And we two of our friends alone abide. 
 (Seek out each fallen foe, that none may claim, 
 Living, a false increase to Sparta's fame. 
 But stay ! in blood Othryades' red shield 
 For Sparta claims the honours of the field, 
 While he now gasps for breath. O righteous Jove ! 
 These signs of unjust victory reprove." 
 
 The traditional fame enjoyed by these two heroes, 
 Cynegirus and Othryades, may be seen from a much 
 later epigram (if an epigram it may be called) by 
 Crinagoras upon the valour of an Italian soldier, 
 though it may scarcely be thought that what this hero 
 accomplished deserved the flourish of trumpets with 
 which his story is introduced : 
 
 " Tell us not of Cynegirus, 
 
 Leave Othryades unsung ; 
 Other deeds to-day inspire us, 
 
 Claiming praise from every tongue. 
 In the Rhine's well-watered re-ion, 
 
 Where a Roman soldier lay, 
 See ! the eagle of his legion 
 
 Carried by the foe away ! 
 Though his strength and life were sinking, 
 
 Bravely he resolved to rise ;
 
 38 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Faced the captor without shrinking, 
 And regained the precious prize. 
 
 When the standard, thus recovered, 
 To its ancient guards had passed, 
 
 Triumph o'er his features hovered, 
 And in joy he breathed his last." 
 
 It may bo a relief to get out of these warlike themes 
 to a calmer region, and to see the tendencies of the 
 Greek mind, in those dedications to the divine powers 
 which seem to have been habitually practised in 
 private life. It will be interesting to follow these 
 through the different stages at which they occurred. 
 
 Here is one which sets forth the prayer and offering 
 of a young maiden, apparently with the concurrence of 
 her mother ; or perhaps it is the prayer of a mother 
 for her daughter, addressed to Ehea, the mother of the 
 gods, for a prosperous life, not forgetting an eligible 
 establishment in marriage. The author is Leonidas of 
 Tarentum, a pleasing and voluminous epigrammatist, 
 belonging apparently to the third century B.O. The 
 translation is by Merivale : 
 
 " holy Mother ! on the peak 
 Of Dindyma, and on those summits Weak 
 
 That frown on Phrygia's scorched plain, 
 Holding thy throne, with fav'ring aspect deign 
 To smile on Aristodice, 
 Scilene's virgin child, that she 
 May grow in beauty and her charms improve 
 To fulness, and invite connubial love. 
 For this, thy poiv.h she seeks, with tributes rare, 
 And o'er thine altars straws her votive hair."
 
 DEDICATORY. 39 
 
 The next, by an anonymous author, contains a minute 
 account of the dedication to Diana by a virgin " about 
 to marry " of her girlish playthings and head-dress : 
 
 " Timarete, her wedding-day now near, 
 To Artemis has laid these offerings here, 
 Her tambourine, her pleasant ball, the net 
 As a safe guardian o'er her tresses set ; 
 Her maiden dolls, in mimic robes arrayed, 
 Gifts titling for a maid to give a maid. 
 Goddess, thy hand upon her kindly lay, 
 And keep her holy in thy holy way." 
 
 The next is from a matron who dedicates her gifts 
 and thanks to three goddesses for the multiplied boons 
 with which her life has been enriched : it is by 
 Agathias : 
 
 " To Venus garlands braids of clustering hair 
 To Pallas, and her zone to Artemis, 
 Callirrhoe gave tit tributes offered there, 
 Whence to her lot hail fallen a triple bliss. 
 A loved and loving suitor she had wed, 
 In modest purity her life was led, 
 And a male race of children blessed her bed." 
 
 A matron thus returns her thanks for the interest- 
 ing event of the birth of twins. It is by Leonidas, 
 and is addressed to the Goddess of Parturition : 
 
 " Here, Ilethyia, at thy noble feet 
 Ambrosia lays a grateful offering meet 
 A robe and head-dress favoured by thy power 
 In the son- travail of her perilous hour; 
 And in due season trengthenud to bring forth 
 A double offspring at a happy birth."
 
 40 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 A young lad here makes an offering to Mercury of 
 the childish things which he was then laying aside. 
 It is by Leonidas : 
 
 " To Hermes, this fair ball of pleasant sound, 
 This boxen rattle, fraught with lively noise, 
 These maddening dice, this top well whirling round, 
 Philocles has hung up, his boyhood's toys." 
 
 This is another, by Euphorion, recording the conse- 
 cration by a young man of the first-fruits of his hair 
 to Apollo, possibly at Delphi a ceremony which was 
 performed as a religious act the hair at Athens and 
 elsewhere in Greece being cut for the first time on the 
 termination of boyhood. The youth referred to ap- 
 pears, from the allusion to ivy, to have shown poetical 
 aspirations, of which an ivy wreath would be the 
 appropriate reward : 
 
 " When first Eudoxus cut the locks he wore, 
 That charm of boyhood he to Phoebus bore ; 
 Instead of locks, Far-darter, hear his vow, 
 And let Acharniun ivy wreath his brow." 
 
 Our next epigram, by an uncertain author, shows 
 the youth advancing towards manhood : 
 
 " Lycon, the rising down that first appeared, 
 To Phcebus gave, the presage of a beard ; 
 And prayed that so he might in after-years, 
 On his grey locks, as now, employ the shears. 
 Grant this request, and on his age bestow 
 The honour that should crown a head of snow." 
 
 Just as the youth made an ollV-ring of the things of
 
 DEDICATORY. 41 
 
 his childhood, and the incipient young man of the 
 signs of his adolescence, so the worn-out labourer or 
 craftsman devoted to some deity the implements which 
 he could no longer wield. Thus, a fisherman oilers 
 his net, in an epigram by Julian the Egyptian. He 
 has written several on the same subject, but we take 
 the shortest as a specimen : 
 
 " Old Cyniras to the Nymphs this net : no more 
 His strength can stand the toils that once it bore : 
 Rejoice, ye 'fishes, .spurting in the sea> 
 From danger at his hands you now are free." 
 
 There was no want of offerings to the gods, particu- 
 larly to those connected with husbandry, as an induce- 
 ment to grant the votary's prayer for continued or 
 increased abundance. Biton, an old man, makes offer- 
 ings to three deities to propitiate their favour in pro- 
 tecting and increasing his rural wealth. The epigram 
 we give is by Sabinus, and runs thus : 
 
 " Roses, the Nymphs, and Pan, a kid received in this 
 
 green shade 
 
 From Biton ; and for Bacchus too a thyrsus here he laid. 
 Accept the gifts, and prosper well, ye several Powers 
 
 Divine, 
 Pan and the Nymphs, the flocks and founts, Bacchus, the 
 
 joyous wine." 
 
 We have just had an example of offerings by one 
 person to thiee deities ; we shall now give, from 
 Leonidas, a record of offerings made to one deity by 
 three comrades, employed in several forms of hunting 
 or capture, but all of them, it would appear, carried on
 
 42 THE GRKEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 by moans of the net. There are many editions of this 
 idea by different authors, but we prefer that of Leon- 
 idas, which is the shortest of them : 
 
 " Three brothers dedicate, O Pan, to thee, 
 Their nets, the various emblems of their toil ; 
 Pigres, who brings from realms of air his spoil, 
 Dames, from woods, and Clitor from the sea. 
 So may the treasures of the deep be given 
 To this to those the fruits of earth, and heaven." 
 
 Leaving the dry land, we give an epigram recording 
 the offering to the sea-gods by a man saved from ship- 
 wreck. It is by Lucian : 
 
 " To Glaucus, Nereus, Ino, and to Melicerte as well, 
 
 To Neptune, and the mystic powers in Samothrace that 
 
 dwell, 
 Grateful that, from the sea preserved, he now on shore can 
 
 live, 
 Lucillus cuts and gives these hairs 'tis all he has to 
 
 give." 
 
 This is a similar tribute in an epigram by Diodorus : 
 
 " When, the wind stirring the Carpathian main, 
 The yard gave way in that night's hurricane, 
 Diogenes, beholding, made the vow 
 That from impending fate if rescued now, 
 Cabeirus, great Boeotian god, to thee 
 He would, within thy precincts hang up ME 
 A little garment this he now performs. 
 Oh ! save him both from poverty and storms/' 
 
 In e?ch of these last two epigrams allusion is made to 
 the Cabiri, who, being worshipped originally in Egypt, 
 became Samothracian divinities, and were worshipped 
 also in Bocotia. It was believed that those who wen-
 
 DEDICATORY. 43 
 
 initiated in their mysteries would be saved in a storm 
 at sea upon appealing to them for preservation. 
 
 Here is a dedication of the offerer's ship itself, which 
 is no longer to go to sea, and along with which he has 
 hid farewell to a seafaring life and its vicissitudes. It 
 is by Macedonius : 
 
 '' King of the sea, and Ruler of the shore, 
 This ship, ordained to touch the waves no more, 
 I, Crantas, give to thee, a ship long driven 
 In sport before the wandering winds of heaven ; 
 In which, oft sailing, 1 have thought with dread, 
 I soon might reach the regions of the dead. 
 Renouncing winds and waves, and hope and fear, 
 Now on dry land I fix my footstep here." 
 
 The conceptions of the Greeks in their votive offerings 
 were often of a fanciful kind. The epigram that fol- 
 lows, said to be by Plato (but probably not the philo- 
 sopher), proceeds upon this incident, real or supposed : 
 " A traveller who, when nearly exhausted by thirst, is 
 guided by the croaking of a frog to a spring of water, 
 dedicates to the Nymphs a bronze image of his pre- 
 server." 
 
 The following translation, though not so ambitious 
 as sonic we have before us, is nearer the original : 
 
 " The servant of the Nymphs, who loves the showers, 
 The minstrel moist, who lurks in watery bowers, 
 A frog, in bronze, a Wayfarer here laid, 
 AY hose burning thirst was quenehtx] by welcome aid. 
 By the hoarse, monitor's amphibious tone 
 A hidden spring \ v as to the wanderer shown, 
 lie followed, nor forsook the guiding sound 
 Till the much-wisheil-t'or draught he grateful found."
 
 44 THE GKJSKK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 In a remarkable epigram by Leonidas, Mars is made 
 to reject with indignation the dedication to himself of 
 arms that had never seen military service. The trans- 
 lation is Mr Hodgson's : 
 
 " Away with spoils like these ! they are not mine ; 
 Hateful to Mars, nor worthy of his shrine : 
 Uudeft the helm, unstained with blood the shield, 
 The inglorious spear, unbroken in the field. 
 Reddening with shame, I feel the hot drops flow, 
 In scorn lor cowards, from my blushing brow. 
 These, let some lover range in wanton pride 
 Round nuptial halls and chambers of the bride. 
 Hang in the temple of the god of fight 
 Arms dropping gore ; for such his soul delight." 
 
 The next epigram we shall give records an interesting 
 dedication of a quiver and arrows by a father who, by 
 a feat of archery somewhat similar to that of William 
 Tell, had saved his little son's life, and was resolved 
 that weapons once used for so beneficent a purpose 
 should never more be employed in the work of de- 
 struction : 
 
 " Alcon beheld his boy, while laid to rest, 
 Close in a deadly serpent's folds compressed : 
 He bent his bow with hand that thrilled with dread, 
 But did not miss his mark the arrow sped 
 Right thro' the monster's jaws with prosperous aim, 
 Near, but not touching, the dear infunt's frame. 
 His quiver, fraught with shafts devised to kill, 
 Hangs on this oak, released from working 
 A record of good fortune and good skill. 
 
 The story on which Gietnlicus, its author, has founded 
 this inscription, is referred to by several ancient writers 
 
 ed to kill, \ 
 king ill, ( 
 till." )
 
 DEDICATORY. 45 
 
 as well known. The boy thus saved is said to have 
 been named Phalcrus, and subsequently to have be- 
 come one of the Argonauts. 
 
 Another of the dedicatory class of epigrams to which 
 we shall refer is one of the most celebrated of all, and 
 is ascribed to one of the greatest names among the 
 anthological poets. It is the dedication by Lais to 
 Venus of her looking-glass, of which the author is said 
 to be Plato the philosopher. It has been imitated by 
 Prior in the well-known quatrain : 
 
 " Venus ! take this votive glass, 
 Since I am not what I was : 
 What I shall hereafter be, 
 Venus ! let me never see." 
 
 Heat as these lines are, and involving the essential 
 ideas of the epigram, they are not sufficiently full or 
 so like the original as might be wished. We give what 
 follows, out of many literal versions which have been 
 attempted : 
 
 " Lais, who smiled at Greece with scornful pride, 
 I, at whose doors a swarm of lovers sighed, 
 This glass to Venus : since what I shall be 
 I would not, what I was, I cannot, see." 
 
 Plato's epigram was imitated and expanded by Julian 
 the Egyptian, of which the following, though rafcher a 
 condensed version, will show the additional points that 
 Julian introduced : 
 
 " I, Lais, who on conquered Greece looked down with 
 
 haughty pride ; 
 I, to whose courts in other days a swarm of lovers hied,
 
 46 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 O, ever lovely Venus ! now this mirror give to thee ; 
 For my present self I would not, and my past I cannot 
 see." 
 
 The general idea of a beautiful woman relinquishing 
 her looking-glass on discovering that her charms begin 
 to wane, presents a picture that has in it both a shade 
 of sadness and a touch of satire. Apart from its 
 mechanical uses, her looking-glass, it must be confessed, 
 is no unimportant element in a woman's life ; and it 
 may be said to be a necessary help to her attaining 
 that complete self-knowledge at which all should aim. 
 It is right that a woman should know whether she is 
 beautiful or not. Socrates is said to have enjoined all 
 young persons to look often into their glass to ascertain 
 if they were good-looking that, if they were so, they 
 might strive to make their mental attainments cor- 
 respond ; and if they were not so, then that they 
 might endeavour by the superior accomplishments of 
 their minds to compensate for their personal short- 
 comings. The fondness for this species of self-con- 
 templation seems to be strong in the sex in general. 
 Novelists describe the village coquette as delighting to 
 admire her face in a small fragment of a looking-glass ; 
 and in one of Southey's books we are told of the poor 
 Portuguese nuns who had never seen the reflection 
 of themselves from the time of entering their place of 
 seclusion until the nunneries were thrown open by the 
 ell'ects of the French invasion. The first impulse of 
 them all was to fly to a looking-gkss that they might 
 see their own faces a sight which to most of them 
 would seem strange indeed, and would inflict the same
 
 DEDICATORY. 47 
 
 kind of pain that Lais was determined to avoid. Ovid 
 somewhere tells a lady 
 
 "The time will come when this your old delight, 
 Your mirror, will present no pleasant sight." 
 
 This era, at which a woman's looking-glass becomes 
 distasteful to her, must bring with it a severe trial and 
 a crisis in her character. In a light French comedy a 
 handsome and gay widow is one day found by her friends 
 and admirers to be in a very wayward mood, the ex- 
 planation of which, on careful inquiry, is found to be 
 that she had that morning observed in her glass the 
 first wrinkle that had visited her face. It must require 
 in the case of an established beauty no small degree of 
 good-humour, good sense, and strength of mind to sub- 
 mit cheerfully to the change thus commencing ; and it 
 will be well for her if she has already followed the ad- 
 vice that Ovid gives to a young woman : 
 
 " Build up the Mind to prop frail Beauty's power ! 
 The mind alone lasts to life's latest hour." * 
 
 But Plato's epigram will not let us confine our atten- 
 tion to the general aspect of the situation ; we are 
 compelled to look at it with special reference to Greek 
 manners, and in particular to that painful subject, the 
 condition of women in Greece. Whatever liberty 
 women may have enjoyed in the heroic or earlier times, 
 
 * The beauty who thus passes into the list of Has-licon's 
 may, however, console herself with the sentiment expressed l>y 
 a clever wit to a pbon-loaklDg woman who was taunting l>v 
 that epithet a veteran belle, that " the Has-been's were at lea&t 
 better than the tfcvcr-was-cs."
 
 48 THE GRREK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 it is certain that in Greek society in its more advanced 
 period, and especially at Athens in the time of PJato, the 
 position of the Greek wife presented a strange con- 
 trast to that of the foreign companion. The wife was 
 certainly not the companion of her husband. She was 
 the mother and the nurse of his children, and the 
 housekeeper or upper servant in his establishment; 
 and though she partook of his meals when they were 
 alone, she rarely did so when other men were present, 
 and never joined in his feasts or convivial meetings. 
 Her place was in the seclusion of home, from which 
 she only emerged, if at all, under rigid restrictions. In 
 a degree corresponding with these servile duties and re- 
 straints seems to have been the cultivation or want of 
 cultivation of the women's minds, which rendered them 
 little capable of holding any enlightened intercourse 
 with their husbands or sympathising in any intellectual 
 pursuits. As to education, young women may be said 
 to have had none ; and their time must indeed have 
 been drearily passed. We may here quote an epigram 
 of Agathias on the subject, who lived at a much later 
 period, when a glimpse of better things must have 
 been introduced from the growing influence of Chris- 
 tian feelings. It is in the form of a complaint put 
 into the mouth of a susceptible Greek maiden, and 
 shows that even in that day the old habits had not 
 yet disappeared. The version is by Mr Swayne : 
 
 " Ah ! youths never know the weight of care, 
 That delicate-spirited women must bear. 
 For comrades of cheery speech have they, 
 To blandish the woes of thought away :
 
 DEDICATORY. 49 
 
 With games they can cheat the hours at home, 
 And whenever abroad in the streets they roam 
 With the colours of painting they glad themselves. 
 But as for us, poor prisoned elves, 
 We are .'hut out from sunlight, buried in rooms, 
 And fretted away by our fancy's glooms." 
 
 In strong contrast with the position of the Greek 
 maiden and matron of respectable and native parent- 
 age was that of the foreign women who were found in 
 Greece. On turning to Mr Theodore Martin's volume 
 on Horace in this series, p. 109, the reader will find an 
 account of the demi-monde that frequented Rome ; hut 
 still more conspicuous and attractive were the Greek 
 Hetaine, whose headquarters may lie said to have heen 
 Corinth. Just as the native Greek women were ex- 
 cluded from society, these foreigners whose number 
 seems to have been swelled by the addition sometimes 
 of foundlings, who had no recognised parentage were 
 excluded from marriage ; no union that they could 
 form being other than temporary or precarious in law. 
 Aspasia was as much the wife of Pericles as the law 
 would allow ; but when he lost the two legitimate sons 
 that his first and lawful wife brought him, he could 
 not look to his boy by Aspasia as in any respect en- 
 titled to the status of a son ; and it was only by an act 
 of special grace that the young man was legitimised by 
 the Athenian people, and added to his father's tribe 
 with his father's name. 
 
 In this degraded position these " strange " women 
 were brought up, with all the accomplishments of 
 which the female mind is capable, and with all the 
 
 A. c. vol. xx. D
 
 50 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 arts of allurement that could attract and fix their lovers, 
 so far at least as such accomplishments and attractions 
 can be attained without the support of moral dignity. 
 Singing and instrumental music, dancing and sprightly 
 conversation, were their special subjects of study ; and 
 some of them, such as Aspasia, seem also to have been 
 educated in the highest and most intellectual acquire- 
 ments. Supposing it to have been a satirical or ex- 
 aggerated statement that Aspasia composed the best of 
 Pericles's speeches, the suggestion would have had no 
 point unless she was believed to have possessed a high 
 degree of genius and cultivation. It was these women 
 who were the " companions" of men, and specially of 
 young men, in their convivial repasts, when women 
 were admitted at all; and it was their powers of amuse- 
 ment and hilarity that constituted their most delightful 
 and most dangerous charm. This was a miserable state 
 of society, in which an impassable gulf intervened be- 
 tween the Virtuous and the Attractive ; and a serious 
 reflection must here awaken our minds to a strong 
 sense of the social benefits which, besides other bless- 
 ings, Christianity has conferred on us, in elevating the 
 position of women as compared with the place they 
 have occupied under other systems of religion, whether 
 Pagan or Mohammedan. 
 
 The epigrams just quoted as to Lais have a plain 
 reference to her condition as an alien. Her birth- 
 place seems to be unknown ; but if it was Corinth, she 
 cannot have inherited the right of citizenship. She 
 is represented as looking with scorn on Greece as a 
 country which she had conquered and laid captive at
 
 DEDICATOR)'. 51 
 
 her feet ; but it is easy to see with what bitterness and 
 deep melancholy a woman with her history and hrr 
 prospects must have regarded the impending loss of 
 thut beauty which, however aided by mental qualities 
 and acquirements, must have been the chief basis of 
 her great but precarious and transitory influence. AVc 
 shall dismiss this imperial and imperious beauty by 
 giving an epigram by Antipater of Sidon, upon her 
 general character and situation, though it belongs pro- 
 perly to the class of epitaphs, and comes in here only 
 as an illustration of what has above been said. The 
 translation is by Hay: 
 
 " Luis, who walked in gold and purple dyes, 
 Here on her sea-girt Corinth lowly lies 
 The pampered friend of Eros, whom that elf 
 Nurtured more daintily than Venus' self. 
 Brighter this human goddess than the stream, 
 Which in Pirene sheds its fulgent gleam : 
 And wooers more she had who sought her arms, 
 Than ever sighed for brilliant Helen's charms. 
 And many revelled in those graces sold 
 For the false glare of all subduing gold. 
 Even in her ashes lives the rich perfume 
 Of odours ever floating round her tomb : 
 Steeped are her locks in myrrh ; the buxom air 
 Inliales the fragrance of her essenced hair. 
 And when slie difd, Cythera near her stood 
 With grief-soik'd cheeks, and Eros sobbed aloud. 
 Oh ! if these charms so many hud not bought, 
 Greece had for Lais as for Helen fought." 
 
 Let us add here, that whatever may have been the 
 general tendency of Greek manners in these respects, 
 there could never be wanting cases in which nature
 
 52 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 would assert her rights, and a pure affection be formed 
 between young lovers, terminating in wedlock. We 
 shall hereafter see some proofs of the truth of this 
 remark. 
 
 It was, we have seen, a prominent part of the Greek 
 and Roman religions to deify, or connect with deity, 
 the most attractive or most important natural objects 
 particularly rivers, fountains, and trees. These 
 seem often to have been regarded as themselves divine ; 
 but at least they were held to be inhabited or fre- 
 quented by divine beings, or were placed under their 
 protection. Fountains, so invaluable a boon in a 
 warm climate, are special favourites. Horace, in one 
 of the most delightful of his odes, which our readers 
 will find in the appropriate volume of this series, at 
 p. 72, vows to sacrifice a kid to the fountain of Ban- 
 el usia in return for the cool refreshment it afforded. 
 At this present time Celtic antiquaries in France are 
 busied in tracing the signs of Water- worship in pagan 
 ages, and think, perhaps fancifully, that in various 
 names of rivers, such as the Dee, the Don, the Devon, 
 there is an affinity with the ancient terms for Deity or 
 Divinity an etymology which seems long ago to have 
 occurred to the Latin poet Ausonius, who was a 
 Frenchman by birth. This is a translation of one of 
 his lines referring to the chief city of the tribe of 
 the Cadurci, where there was a great aqueduct: 
 
 " The Celtic Divona, a fount divine." 
 Some epigrams on the subject of fountains or streams
 
 DEDICATORY. 63 
 
 have already been given. Here is another by Hermo- 
 creon : 
 
 " Ye water-nymphs, to whom Hermocreon placed 
 These gifts, when a fresh fountain here lie found, 
 Hail ! and when those fair feet ny home have graced, 
 Be tilled with the pure streams that flow around." 
 
 The. epigram that follows is, as will be seen, an 
 imaginary dedication, *as it relates to an historical or 
 rather a legendary character, Neoptolemus, or Pyrrhns 
 as he was called from the fiery colour of his hair, the 
 son of Achilles and descendant of ^acus, monarch of 
 ^Egina, The epigram seems to represent Neoptolemus, 
 whose entry into public life was very warlike, as 
 now settling down to rural employments, and making 
 simple offerings to the divinities by whom, he was 
 surrounded : 
 
 " Ye folds, ye hill-nymphs' haunts, ye fountains clear 
 Under the cliff, thou pine-tree rising near, 
 Thou square-formed Hermes, saviour of the flock, 
 And Pan, thou dweller on the goat-hrowsed rock, 
 See here the gifts I bring, in hope to please, 
 Cakes and a wine-cup full accept of these 
 From Neoptolemus ^Eiicides." 
 
 The only reference in this epigram which seems to 
 need explanation is the allusion to Hermes or Mer- 
 cury, who is spoken of as the " square-formed." This 
 was the general shape of those Hermre, the images 
 which were so frequent as measurements of distances 
 or marks of boundaries, consisting of a rude square 
 figure with a head but no hands. More recondite ex- 
 planations of the epithet are sometimes given, as that
 
 54 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 the dexterity of the god in all situations was such, that 
 like a cube he always alighted upon a stable basis ; or 
 that he was the inventor of the four great discoveries 
 of letters, music, gymnastics, and geometry. Mention 
 is made by Pausanias of a square figure of Mercury 
 made of stone, piqued beside imaged jf the Nymphs, 
 and with a stream of water issuing from his left 
 hand. 
 
 Here is an offering to some aquatic deities from a 
 thirsty traveller by Leonidas of Tarentum : 
 
 " Cool stream, where waters from the cleft rock start, 
 
 Forms, too, of Naiads, carved by rustic art, 
 
 Ye fountain-heads, and countless spots around, 
 
 Made lovely by your rills that here abound, 
 
 Farewell ! and from a wayfarer receive 
 
 The hoiu which here he dipped his hot thirst to relieve." 
 
 It is from the statues or images thus placed near 
 fountains or in beautiful spots of scenery that we may 
 suppose the invitations to proceed, which the epi- 
 grams so often address to us, to seek rest or refresh- 
 ment. Here are some specimens. This is anonymous, 
 supposed to be spoken by Pan from his image near a 
 fountain : 
 
 " Come, rest beneath my pine-tree, murmuring sweet 
 To the soft zephyrs it delights to greet : 
 Here, by this limpid stream that gurgling flows, 
 My rustic pipe shall soothe you to repose." 
 
 This by Anyt6 is very similar^ the translation altered 
 from Bland :
 
 DEDICATORY. 55 
 
 " Stranger, beneath this rock thy limbs bestow , 
 
 Sweet in the green leaves the breeze murmurs here : 
 This fountain's stream will cool the summer's glow : 
 Such rest is ever to tired pilgrims dear." 
 
 This is by Hermocreon, also very like : 
 
 " Sit, passer-by, this plane-tree's shade beneath, 
 Whose leaves are stirred when soft the zephyrs breathe : 
 Here I am stationed, Maia's son renowned, 
 To guard Nicagoras' goods and fruitful ground." 
 
 This, again, is by Anyte : 
 
 " To shaggy Pan, and to the Fold-nymphs fair, 
 
 Fast by the rock a shepherd's ottering stands, 
 Tlieudotus' gift to those who gave him there 
 Rest, when he fainted in the sultry air, 
 
 And reached him sweetest water with their hands." 
 
 This is by Myro of Byzantium, the translation by Mr 
 Burgon : 
 
 " O forest-nymphs ! daughters of the river, 
 Who haunt ambrosial these deep glades for ever 
 
 With rosy feet, 
 
 Thrice hail ! and be Cleonymus your care : 
 For he, in this pine-sheltered, calm retreat, 
 To you erected all these statues fair." 
 
 This chapter may be appropriately closed by two 
 little poems of a character closely resembling pac.h 
 other, as referring to places, perhaps towers or pnnli 
 temples in the sea or on the seaside, dedicated to 
 Venus, in her pleasing character as Queen of the Sea, 
 and as protecting sailors by the soothing or subduing 
 influence of her image on the surrounding waves.
 
 56 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 The first of these is by Anyte : 
 
 " This Venus' favourite haunt: 'tis her delight 
 To look from land upon the ocean bright, 
 And speed the sailor's course. The ambient brine 
 Quails as it sees the image in her shrine." 
 
 Of the other, by Antipater, we shall give a transla- 
 tion by Mr Hay ; but in which a slight alteration has 
 l>een made, for a reason that will be explained. It 
 is Venus that speaks : 
 
 " Simple this shrine, where by the dark white wave 
 I sit, the mistress of a briny shore : 
 Simple, but loved ; for I delight to save 
 The sailor, while I quell the billows' roar. 
 Propitiate Venus : I will prove to thee 
 A friend, when tossed by love or on the clear blue sea." 
 
 Lessing conjectures that the abode thus described may 
 have been some seaside chapel to the marine Venus, 
 such as may have been in use at Sestos, where Hero 
 Leander's Hero officiated as a priestess of the goddess. 
 He suggests that at such a chapel an image of Venus 
 may have been preserved, which was lifted up or ex- 
 posed to view in a storm in order to awe thi waves 
 into a state of calm. The idea in the epigram, there- 
 fore, seems to lie, that Venus delights, not, as had 
 been supposed, in the roaring of the billows, but in 
 exerting her power to make them cease to roar. 
 
 On the gems and coins of Sestos or Abydos which 
 refer to the story of Hero and Leander, a tower was 
 sometimes to be seen, with Hero holding out a torch 
 to guide her lover on his way.
 
 CHAPTER TIL 
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 
 
 WE proceed now to that class of inscriptions which 
 may be called Sepulchral, and which are of universal 
 use among nations. Wordsworth, in his " Essay on 
 Epitaphs," is anxious to prove the proposition of 
 Weever in his ' Funeral Monuments,' that the in- 
 vention of such inscriptions proceeded from the pre- 
 sage or anticipation of immortality implanted in all 
 men naturally. He himself says, that " without the 
 consciousness of immortality in the human soul, man 
 could never have had awakened in him the desire to 
 live in the remembrance of his fellows ; mere love, or 
 the yearning of kind towards kind, could not have 
 produced it." There is much to support the views 
 which Wordsworth urges on this subject. Many 
 national customs have been manifestly formed on this 
 basis ; and it cannot be doubted that without the 
 conviction that our nature possesses an imperishable 
 part, our dispositions, affections, and aspirations would 
 be lamentably changed for the worse, and the best 
 light of our existence extinguished. But it does not 
 seein to be certain either that a desire of posthumous
 
 58 TUE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 reputation could not exist, or that a regard and respect 
 for the memory and remains of those we loved when 
 in life, could not be cherished and expressed, without 
 the presage of immortality. Even those heathens, if 
 such there be, who are without such a blessed antici- 
 pation, may yet look back with tender regret on the 
 vanished happiness which they enjoyed with a be- 
 loved object ; and the feeling of reverence which was 
 directed to the living friend or parent may naturally 
 extend to the lifeless body that was recently so dear 
 to us. The sentiment, "how much less precious it is 
 to associate with survivors than to remember the 
 departed," does not seem to be indissolubly connected 
 with any creed as to a future life ; and the desire to 
 defend from injury the bodies of friends is intelligible 
 on other principles. Gray, in his " Elegy," ascribes the 
 use of monumental erections and their inscriptions to 
 a lower range of feeling : 
 
 " Yet even these bones from insult to protect, 
 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
 With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh." 
 
 It is perhaps a fault in the "Elegy in a Country 
 Churchyard" if it is permissible to find any fault in 
 that admirable poem that it should throughout exhibit 
 so little of an appeal to religious feelings, or a direct 
 reference to the prospect of immortality. But it may 
 tend to show that a solemn and powerful regard 
 for the dead has in some degree an independent basis. 
 It has been a subject of grave doubt to some minds
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 59 
 
 whether the earlier Jews were believers in a future 
 state, and were not rather under the awe of a present 
 theocracy ; and the Book of Psalms has been referred 
 to as at once the most religious of manuals, and yet 
 the one which has the least clear indications of a life 
 to come. It seems quite intelligible that the memory 
 of parents and other ancestors, who have been bene- 
 factors to their kind, may be cherished, and memorials 
 erected to them, not only from intrinsic regard and 
 admiration, but also from a desire to stimulate their 
 successors to imitate their virtues and equal their 
 glory. The strong desire for posthumous fame shown 
 by the ancient poets seems not wholly, and perhaps 
 very partially, to arise from a religious feeling. 
 
 Greek epitaphs have a great diversity of charactex 
 in this respect. Some of them make no allusion to a 
 future state ; and the absence of this hope seems only 
 to make the feeling of bereavement more deep, and the 
 recollection of what is lost more tender. Even those 
 are, as Christopher North has said, "beautiful ex- 
 ceedingly ; and in us, to whom life and immortality 
 have been brought to light, they inspire a strange 
 feeling of sympathy for such sadness, and of humble 
 gratitude for our better lot. Heart-broken, hopeless 
 sighs over the grave from which there might be no 
 blessed resurrection ! A lament as of the passing wind 
 over the monumental stone ! No bright gleam from 
 above, as with us, cheering the gloom below ! On 
 the tombstone of the Christian maiden no words are 
 graved utterly forlorn much grief but no despair 
 being dead she yet speaketh and the inscription is
 
 60 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 as a blessing on the survivors, -who are bade weep no 
 more for the happy." 
 
 We subjoin a few of the Greek epitaphs, beginning 
 with two ascribed to Erinna, who is said, though with- 
 out conclusive evidence, to have been a contemporary 
 of Sappho. They are both upon a maiden friend of 
 Erinna's, whose name was Baucis ; but this appel- 
 lation having unfortunately been appropriated by a 
 respectable female of another character, our trans- 
 lators have substituted respectively Myrtis and Ida. 
 This translation is by Elton : 
 
 " The virgin Myrtis' sepulchre am I : 
 Creep softly to the pillared mount of woe, 
 And whisper to the grave, in earth below, 
 ' Grave ! thou art envious in thy cruelty ! ' 
 To thee now gazing here, her barbarous fate 
 These bride's adornments tell ; that with the fire 
 Of Hymen's torch which led her to the gate, 
 Her husband burned the maid upon her pyre. 
 Yes, Hymen ! thou didst change the marriage-song 
 To the shrill wailing of the mourners' throng." 
 
 Merivalehas another version, of which the last part is 
 so good as to deserve being also inserted : 
 
 " The very torch that laughing: Hymen bore 
 To light the virgin to the bridegroom's door, 
 With that same torch the bridegroom lights the fire 
 That dimly glimmers on her funeral pyre. 
 Thou, too, Hymen ! bid'st the nuptial lay 
 In elegiac moanings die away."
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 61 
 
 XL 
 
 " Pillars of death ! carved syrens ! tearful urn ! 
 
 In whose sad keeping my poor dust is laid, 
 To those who near my tomb their footsteps turn, 
 
 Stranger or Greek, bid hail ! and say, a maid 
 Rests in her bloom below ; her sire the name 
 
 Of Myrtis gave ; her birth and lineage high : 
 And say her bosom-friend Erinna came, 
 
 And on this marble graved her elegy." 
 
 Here is a similar one by Melcager himself, translated 
 by \Vrnngliam : 
 
 " Her virgin zone unloosed, Clesera's charms 
 Death clasps stern bridegroom in his iron arms. 
 Hymns at the bridal valves last night were sung 
 Last night the bridal roof with revels rung 
 This morn the wail was raised, and, hushed and low, 
 The strains of joy were changed to moans of woe ; 
 And the bright torch to Hymen's hall which led, 
 With mournful glare now lighted to the dead." 
 
 The following is said to be by Sappho. The transla- 
 tion is by Elton, a little altered : 
 
 " This dust was Timas' : ere her bridal bed 
 Within Persephone's dark bower received, 
 With new-sharped steel her playmates from each head 
 Cut their fair locks, to show how much they grieved." 
 
 This also is said to be Sappho's, translated by Charli s 
 Merivale : 
 
 " Deep in the cirri ry chambers of the dead, 
 Asteria's ghost has made her bridal bed. ' 
 Still to this stone her fond compeers may turn, 
 And shed their cherished tresses on her urn."
 
 62 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 But notwithstanding this prevailing gloom, there are, 
 a? Mr Merivale has said, "a few which present us 
 with brighter prospects, and bring us nearer to the 
 Elysium described by the more cheerful poets of Italy." 
 One of the most gladsome of these is an epitaph upon 
 " Prote," a name which means First, and indicates pro 
 bably a first-born daughter. It is not in the regulai 
 Anthologies, but is a Greek inscription on a marble at 
 Rome belonging to a Roman family of Pagan times. 
 We give a version by Hay, altering merely one lino 
 and a word to come nearer to the original : 
 
 " Prote, thou art not dead ; but thou hast passed 
 To better lands, where pleasures ever last 
 To bound in joy amidst the fairest flowers 
 Of the blest isles, Elysium's blooming bowers. 
 Thee nor the summer's heat nor winter's chill 
 Shall e'er annoy exempt from every ill : 
 Nor sickness, hunger, thirst again distress ; 
 Nor dost thou long for earthly happiness. 
 Contented ihou, remote from human woes, 
 In the pure light which from Olympus flows." 
 
 In seeking to illustrate these diversified aspects of 
 the Greek sepulchral inscriptions in reference to the 
 presence or absence of the hope of a future life, we 
 have passed over some of the very simplest of these 
 epitaphs, which deserve attention. It may be inter- 
 esting to follow them through the dill'erent periods 
 of life, though a good many specimens of epitaphs on 
 young women have already been given. 
 
 The following epitaph by Callimachus (B.C. 250) is 
 an example of the severe simplicity and directness
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 63 
 
 which the Greeks here aimed at. Everything essen- 
 tial is contained in it the names of the persons, 
 their mutual relations, the age of the buried buy, and 
 the great hopes which he had held out to his father. 
 There is no expression of grief, no effort at ornament, 
 no expansion of any idea such as modern taste would 
 suggest to a poet ; the situation speaks for itself, and 
 the very reticence of the bereaved parent gives to his 
 sorrow a more solemn and sacred aspect. 
 
 The two versions we give are nearly literal : 
 
 " His .son, now twelve years old, Philippus sees 
 Here laid, his mighty hope, Nicoteles." 
 
 " His little son of twelve years old Philippus here has 
 
 laid, 
 
 Nicoteles, on whom so much his father's hopes were 
 stayed." 
 
 Here is another epitaph by Lucian on a still younger 
 child, where the parents do not appear, and the child 
 speaks somewhat philosophically in its own person : 
 
 " A boy of five years old, serene and gay, 
 Unpitying Hades hurried me away. 
 Yet weep not for Callimachna ; if few 
 The days I lived, few were my sorrows too." 
 
 We next give an epitaph on a young maiden, cut off 
 in the prime of youth anil beauty, while the "cynosure 
 of neighbouring eyes." It is the composition of Anyte, 
 a Tegean poetess, belonging apparently to the third 
 century before our era, whose epigrams, twenty-two 
 in number, possess great delicacy and tenderness of 
 style, and procured for her the emblem of the " white 
 lily," assigned to her by Meleager :
 
 <}4 THK GRKEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 rt I mourn the maid Antibia, for whose love 
 
 Full many a suitor sought her father's hall, 
 Her beauty and her wit so much could move ; 
 But deadly Fate o'erturned the hopes of alL" 
 
 Here is another version by Mr Keen : 
 
 ' Drop o'er Antibia's grave a pious tear, 
 For virtue, beauty, wit, lie buried here. 
 Full many a suitor sought her father's hall, 
 To gain the virgin's love ; but death o'er all 
 Claimed dire precedence who shall deatli withstand? 
 Their hopes were blasted by his ruthless hand." 
 
 This is sweet and elegant, but not sufficiently simple 
 or short. We add one by Mr Hay, which Christopher 
 North declared that he considered perfect : 
 
 " The maid Antibia I lament ; for whom 
 
 Full many a suitor sought her father's hall : 
 
 For beauty, prudence, famed was she ; but doom 
 
 Destructive overwhelmed the hopes of all." 
 
 We now give another epitaph by Callimachus, 
 simple and short, as his com positions generally are, but 
 containing a lofty thought, always a favourite among 
 the ancients as among ourselves : 
 
 " Here Dicon's son, Acanthian Saou lies 
 In sacred sleep : say not a good man dies." 
 
 The same idea, almost identically expressed, is con- 
 tained in another, and apparently a later epitaph, by 
 an unknown author : 
 
 " This is Popilia's tomb : my husband's care 
 Framed it, Oceanus, of wisdom rare. 
 Here rest my ashes ; but the Shades below 
 Hearing my hymns, thy goodness, friend, shall know.
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 65 
 
 Think of me ever, husband, and while here 
 Drop, on the tomb I fill, the frequent tear. 
 And say, Popilia slumbers : never think 
 That the good die: to happy sleep they sink." 
 
 It is a natural and precious belief, as to all the 
 departed whom we value, 
 
 " How sleep the Brave, who sink to rest 
 By all their country's wishes blest !" 
 
 Callimachus led us into this train of thought, and 
 we shall follow it up by another epitaph of his upon 
 a friend, written in his best stylo, much admired and 
 often translated. As it is a model of its kind, we shall 
 give three translations, the first by a distinguished 
 and lamented scholar, Henry Nelson Coleridge ; the 
 second by Mr Hay ; and a third which we add with 
 dillidence, as bringing out one or two points in the 
 original which in the others seem a little lost sight 
 of: 
 
 " They told me, Heraclitus, thou wert dead, 
 And then I thought, and tears thereon did shed, 
 How oft we two talked down the sun ; but thou 
 llalieaniassean guest ! art ashes now. 
 Yet live thy nightingales of song : on those 
 Forgetfulness her hand shall ne'er impose." 
 
 " I wept, my Heraclitus, when they told 
 That thou wert deul ; 1 thought of days of old, 
 How oft in talk we sent the sun to rest : 
 Long since hast thou, my Halicarnassian guest, 
 Been dust : yet live thy nightingales on these 
 The all-plundering hand of death shall never seize." 
 
 A. C. Vol. XX. B
 
 66 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " One told me, Heraclitus, of thy fate, 
 Which brought the tear into my eye to think 
 How oft we two, conversing long and late, 
 Have seen the sun into his chamber sink ; 
 But that is past and gone, and somewhere thow. 
 Halicarnassian guest ! art ashes now. 
 Yet live those nightingales of thine ; on these 
 The all-grasping hand of Hades will not seize." 
 
 Here is another epitaph by a friend upon a friend, 
 by an unknown author, but simple and beautiful as 
 Callimachus himself might have written : 
 
 " A record, good Sabinus, though unfit, 
 
 This little stone of our great love shall be : 
 I still shall miss thee : thou, if law permit, 
 Abstain from Lethe's wave for love of me." 
 
 The concluding idea in these lines has been copied in 
 an epitaph in the Latin Anthology on a predeceasing 
 wife, who is thus addressed by her husband : 
 
 " But thou of touching Lethe's stream beware, 
 Certain that soon thy husband will be there." 
 
 Friendship, so touchingly illustrated by the epitaphs 
 immediately above quoted, seems, we think, to have 
 played a more important or more conspicuous part in 
 Greek manners and social history than it does among 
 ourselves. It was necessarily so, indeed, considering 
 the different character of domestic life in the two 
 forms of national habits. It has sometimes been said 
 that in our own country and age a man's best friend 
 is generally to be found in his wife ; and the identity 
 of their interests, the equality of their position, and
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 67 
 
 the correspondence between their attainments and in- 
 telligence, greatly conduce to this result, which is at 
 the same time promoted by the very differences that 
 exist in their tastes and faculties, and that give a 
 peculiar softness and tenderness to their attachment. 
 
 Friendship, with us, is more peculiarly the virtue of 
 youth ; and no greater blessing can befall a young man 
 than the friendship of one not much exceeding his 
 own years, and from whom he may derive living 
 lessons in the pursuit of learning and the practice of 
 high principle. The influence of such a friend is 
 all the more powerful because it is more persuasive 
 and less dictatorial than the teaching of a guardian or 
 other preceptor of more advanced age and of less con- 
 genial feelings. 
 
 The delightful glimpse that the epitaph on Heracli- 
 tus gives us of two friends conversing till they talked 
 the sun down, reminds one of a still nobler picture in 
 Cowley's admirable " Elegy on the Death of William 
 Ilervey : " 
 
 " Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, 
 How oft unwearyYl have we spent the nights, 
 Till the Ledtran stars, so famed for love, 
 
 Wondered at us from above ? 
 We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine, 
 
 But search of deep philosophy, 
 
 Wit, eloquence, and poetry, 
 Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine." 
 
 We think we do our readers a great service by 
 referring them here, if they do not already know it, 
 to a very pleasing poem by Principal Shairp in ' Mac-
 
 68 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 millan's Magazine' for March 1873, containing his 
 touching reminiscences of the band of distinguished 
 friends among whom his college days at Oxford had 
 been passed. 
 
 We proceed to give some miscellaneous epitaphs on 
 persons of both sexes dying in early life, or at least 
 before old age. 
 
 This, by Hegesippus, is on a good man, and is inter- 
 esting as referring to the two diverging roads in the 
 Unseen Regions, mentioned also by Virgil, of which 
 the one on the right leads to Elysium, and the other 
 to Tartarus : 
 
 " Hermes leads good men from the pyre, they say, 
 To Rhadamanthus, by the right-hand way; 
 Which Aristonous, not unwept, has trod 
 To all-compelling Pluto's wide abode." 
 
 This is on a young maiden named Macedonia, cut off 
 before her prime, but described as having a marked 
 superiority of character. It is by Paul the Silen- 
 tiary : 
 
 " Thy bier, and not thy bridal bed, sweet maid, 
 With grieving hands thy parents have arrayed. 
 Thou from life's troubles and from childbirth's pains 
 Escap'st ; for them a cloud of woes remains. 
 Fate, at thy twelfth year, wrapped thee in the mould 
 In beauty, young ; in moral merits, old." 
 
 Our next bears the name of Xenocritus, and laments 
 the death at sea of a maiden who was repairing under 
 her father's charge to her betrothed. The translation 
 u partly borrowed from one by Mr Hay :
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 69 
 
 " Shipwrecked Lysidice, thon hapless fair, 
 Lost in the sea, the brine bedews thy hair. 
 Ocean was stirred ; and viewing the wild tide, 
 Thou fell'st, in terror, from the vessel's side. 
 Thine and thy native Ciuna's name are read 
 On this void tomb, to tell that thou art dead. 
 Thy bones are somewhere washed in the cold deep ; 
 And Aristomachus, thy sire, must weep 
 That, journeying with thee for thy marriage-day, 
 Nor bride, nor even her corse, he could convey." 
 
 We are afraid that the subject of the following lines 
 had not possessed the " moral merits " ascribed to one 
 young person already mentioned. It seems pretty 
 clear from her companionable qualities that Patrophile 
 was not a Greek citizen ; Taut her early death might be 
 sad enough for all that, and a deep affliction to some 
 one. The translation is based on one by Mr Hay : 
 
 " In the full ripeness of thy beauty's prime, 
 
 Thine eyelids now, Patrophile, are sealed : 
 Mute is that tongue that so beguiled the time ; 
 
 Quenched are the wiles thy words and looks revealed. 
 The voice of harp and song where, where are these ? 
 
 The kisses, too, that blest the circling bowl ? 
 Why, Pluto, thus our loved companion seize ? 
 
 Had Venus maddened even thy gloomy soul ? " 
 
 Commentators are not agreed as to the relation in 
 which Meleager stood to some of the females to whom 
 his verses were addressed, and in particular to Helio- 
 dora, who is the subject of one of the most beautiful 
 and passionate laments that affection has ever prompted. 
 We will believe that she was his wife, though some 
 think she was his mistress, and high authorities infer
 
 70 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 from certain expressions used that she was his daugh- 
 ter. It has often been translated. The version we 
 give is the joint production of Mr Hay and Christo- 
 pher North. Several others of much merit will be 
 found collected in ' Blackwood,' voL xxxiv. p. 127; 
 but rt is sufficient to refer to them. 
 
 " Tears, Heliodora ! tears for thee, companion of the dead, 
 Last yearnings of thy husband's love, to Hades now I shed ; 
 Tears from a heart by anguish wrung for her whom I 
 
 deplore 
 
 Memorials of regretful love upon her tomb I pour. 
 For thee, belov'd, even with the dead, thy Meleager sighs, 
 Now parting with a precious gift which Acheron will not 
 
 prize. 
 Where my desired blossom now ? its bloom hath Hades 
 
 spoiled, 
 And my consummate flower, alas ! the cruel dust hath 
 
 soiled. 
 Thou all-sustaining Mother, Earth ! oh, clasp her to thy 
 
 breast, 
 My evermore lamented one, and softly let her rest ! " 
 
 This next epitaph has a dramatic character about it 
 whi^h deserves notice. It is by Leonidas of Taren- 
 turo 
 
 " Who, and whose child art thou, who here dost lie 
 
 Under this marble ? " " Prexo named am I, 
 
 The daughter of Calliteles." " Where, born ? " 
 
 " In Samoa." " O'er thy tomb, say, who did mourn ? " 
 
 " Theocritus, the spouse my parents chose." 
 
 " What caused thy death 1 " " Childbirth my days did 
 
 close." 
 
 "How old?" "Just twenty-two." No child didst leave;?" 
 " Calliteles but three years old must grieve."
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 71 
 
 " Blessings and length of days be on the boy." 
 
 " Thanks, friend, and fortune's smiles inayst th'ou enjoy." 
 
 Here is another dialogue by Julian in a different 
 style, the translation by Gold win Smith : 
 
 " Cruel is Death." " Nay, kind. He that is ta'en 
 Was old in wisdom, though his years were few." 
 " Life's pleasure hath he lost." " Escaped life's pain : " 
 " Nor wedded joys," " nor wedded sorrows, knew." 
 
 Here is a sweet epitaph by a husband who has sus- 
 tained the double loss of a wife and child, by Bianor, 
 the translation also by Goldwin Smith, slightly al- 
 tered : 
 
 " I wept Theonoe's loss ; but one fair child 
 Its father's heart of half its woe beguiled : 
 And now, sole source of hope and solace left, 
 That one fair child the envious Fates have reft. 
 Hear, Proserpine, my prayer, and lay to rest 
 My little babe on its lost mother's breast" 
 
 Take some specimens now relating to men older in 
 years, who had run their career and accomplished their 
 objects in life. This one is anonymous, the transla- 
 tion by Hodgson and Bland. It gives a pleasant 
 picture of a useful country gentleman : 
 
 " Take old Amyntor to thy heart, dear soil, 
 In kind remembrance of his former toil ; 
 Who first enriched and ornamented thee 
 With many a lovely shrub and branching tree, 
 And lured a stream to fall in artful showers 
 Upon thy thirsting herbs and fainting flowers. 
 First in the spring he knew the rose to rear ; 
 First in the autumn culled the ripened pear ;
 
 72 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 His vines were envied all the country round, 
 And favouring heaven showered plenty on his ground ; 
 Therefore, kind Earth, reward him in thy breast 
 With a green covering and an easy rest." 
 
 We shall now insert some examples of epitaphs on 
 fishermen and mariners, who formed so numerous a 
 class in the essentially maritime country of Greece. 
 This is ascribed to Sappho : 
 
 " Here, where the fisher Pelagon is laid, 
 His sire Meniscos has this offering made : 
 A wicker net and oar, that well may show 
 The life that fishers lead of toil and woe." 
 
 Sappho's epigram is only a couplet, and it is not easy 
 to imitate the simplicity and condensation of the ori- 
 ginal ; but this is an attempt : 
 
 " Here to the fisher Pelagon, his sire Meniscos laid 
 
 A wicker-net and oar, to show his weary life and trade." 
 
 The next is by Addceus, on a fisherman whose boat 
 was put to three various uses : 
 
 " The fisher Diotimus long a trusty boat had rowed, 
 
 Which also furnished on dry land a poor but fit abode. 
 
 When thrown into his last long sleep, his dreary way he 
 made 
 
 To Hades without further help, by that same boat con- 
 veyed : 
 
 For that which had sustained his life the old man kept 
 entire, 
 
 And dying found it useful still to form his funeral pyre." 
 
 This epitaph on a seaman's tomb is ascribed to 
 Plato :
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 73 
 
 " I am a shipwrecked sailor's tomb : a peasant's there doth 
 
 stand : 
 Thus the same world of Hades lies beneath both sea and 
 
 land." 
 
 There are many more of the same class. This is by 
 Poseidippus. The translation is nearly as given in 
 Merivale's book, with the initials A. F. M. : 
 
 " Oh, why, my brother -mariners, so near the boisterous 
 
 wave 
 
 Of ocean have ye hollowed out my solitary grave ? 
 'Twere better much that farther off a sailor's tomb should 
 
 be, 
 
 For I dread my rude destroyer I dread the roaring sea : 
 But may the smiles of fortune, and may love and peace 
 
 await 
 All you who shed a pitying tear for poor Nicetas' fate." 
 
 On a shipwrecked person, the translation by Mr 
 Hodgson : 
 
 " Perish the hour, that dark and starless hour 
 IVii-h the roaring main's tempestuous power, 
 That whelmed the ship where loved Abdera's son 
 Prayed to unheeding Heaven, and was undone. 
 Yes all were wrecked : and by the stormy wave 
 To rough Seriphus borne he found a grave 
 Found from kind stranger hands funereal fires, 
 Yet reached, inurned, the country of liis sires." 
 
 Here is another of the same class, ascribed to Plato, 
 but on doubtful evidence : 
 
 " Ye murimTs, by sea and land be yours a happy doom ; 
 But know, you now are sidling past a shipwrecked sea- 
 man's tomb."
 
 74 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 This is by Leonidas : 
 
 " Fearless embark from the wrecked seaman's tomb : 
 Others sailed safely when I met my doom." 
 
 This is by Callimachus, and exhibits his usual elegance. 
 The translation is taken from Mr Symonds's book on 
 the Greek Poets : 
 
 " Would that swift ships had never been ; for so 
 
 We ne'er had wept for Sopolis : but he 
 Dead on the waves now drifts ; while we must go 
 Past a void tomb, a mere name's mockery." 
 
 There are one or two epitaphs upon slaves which are 
 interesting, particularly as showing that the relation 
 between a good master or mistress and a slave or 
 perpetual bondsman was often friendly, and even affec- 
 tionate. This is by Dioscorides : 
 
 " A slave, a Lydian, yet my master gave 
 To me, who fostered him, a freeman's grave : 
 Master, live long ; and when on life's decline 
 You come to Hades, there I'll still be thine." 
 
 This, by an anonymous author, in the same strain, is 
 touching : 
 
 " Master, to thee still faithful I remain 
 In death, and still my grateful thoughts retain ; 
 How, rescued thrice from fell disease by thee, 
 I fill this cell, where passers-by may see 
 Manes the Persian's tomb : for such good deed 
 Service more true from all will be thy meed." 
 
 The next that we give is put into the mouth of 
 another dying slave, also a Persian, bearing the name
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 75 
 
 of a great river, and who deprecates any funerai rites 
 that would be at variance with his creed : 
 
 " Burn not Euphrates, master ; let not Fire 
 Be here polluted for my funeral pyre. 
 A Persian born, of Persia's genuine race, 
 Fire to profane, to me were dire disgrace. 
 Lay me in earth ; nor even bring water here 
 To wash me, Rivers also I revere." 
 
 Manes, a name already mentioned, was commonly 
 borne by slaves, and occurs in the following epigram 
 by Anyt6 : 
 
 " Manes, when living, was a slave : dead now, 
 Great King Darius, he's as great as thou." 
 
 This, on a female slave of high character, by Damas- 
 kios, will best bear translation in hexameters. It is 
 not clear whether she had been manumitted during 
 her lifetime : 
 
 " Zosima, who when alive was only a slave in the body, 
 Now, in the body as well, freedom at last has obtained." 
 
 This chapter may be concluded by a few special 
 epitaphs, real or supposed, upon persons of distinction. 
 Of these perhaps the most celebrated, and certainly 
 one of the best, is by Simonides, on Archcdico, the 
 daughter of the Athenian tyrant Hippias, and wife of 
 a tyrant's son at Lampsacus, where a monument was 
 erected to her memory, on which the epitaph in 
 question was actually inscribed : 
 
 u Of One who, high in Greece precedence held, 
 Hippias, who all men of his day excelled,
 
 76 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Archedice the daughter here doth rest : 
 Her father, brothers, husband, sons, possessed 
 A princely rank ; but in her gentle mind 
 None could a trace of arrogance e'er find." 
 
 Aristotle, who admired the genius and taste of Simon- 
 ides, particularly refers to this epitaph as a specimen 
 of judicious praise, the person mentioned being char- 
 acterised as possessing that virtue which it was most 
 difficult to practise in the position held by her. He 
 gives as cases deserving of special eulogium when a 
 prosperous person is moderate, or an unfortunate one 
 magnanimous. 
 
 The next that we shall give is by Antipater of 
 Sidon, upon Aristomenes, a Messenian prince, the 
 determined enemy of Sparta, whose life, though un- 
 doubtedly historical, was adorned by exaggerations 
 or additions of almost a legendary character. His 
 chief qualities seem to have been patriotism, cour- 
 age, and perseverance under difficulties, tempered 
 with gentleness and tenderness of heart. A singular 
 story is told of him, that a Ehodian king, when 
 consulting the Delphic oracle, was enjoined to marry 
 the daughter of "the best of the Greeks." This he 
 considered 10 be no other than Aristomenes, wno 
 thereafter found in Ehodes a peaceful refuge with his 
 son-in-law. The epitaph which follows introduces 
 upon the scene an eagle, by which bird his life had 
 previously been saved when precipitated down a pit 
 by the Spartans. The translation is by Leyden, and 
 is very spirited :
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 77 
 
 ON AN EAGLE PERCHED ON THE TOMBSTONE OF 
 ARISTOMENES. 
 
 " Majestic Bird ! so proud and fierce, 
 
 Why tower' st tliou o'er that warrior's hearse 1 " 
 " I tell each god-like earthly king, 
 
 Fur as o'er birds of every wing 
 
 Supreme the lordly eagle sails, 
 
 Great Aristomenes prevails. 
 
 Let timid doves, with plaintive cry, 
 
 Coo o'er the graves where cowards lie : 
 
 'Tis o'er the dauntless hero's breast 
 
 The kingly eagle loves to rest." 
 
 The advance and ultimate predominance of the 
 Macedonian power over Greece proper, formed a tempt- 
 ing occasion to time-servers for flattering the con- 
 querors. Some mortuary epigrams hero occur as 
 marking that era. The lirst we give is upon Philip 
 of Mucedon, by Addoeus : 
 
 " I, Philip, who first raised the Ematlrian name 
 By warlike deeds beyond all former fame, 
 Lie here at yEgaj : it' you e'er shall see 
 One greater, from my lineage it must be." 
 
 A : ^x. was the place where the sepulchre of the Mace- 
 donian kings was situated. The allusion in the end 
 is of course to Alexander the Great. Addoeus was 
 probably a Macedonian. 
 
 Connected with Philip's name is a very ungenerous 
 epigram by Geminus, in honour of the Macedonian 
 victories over the Athenians, and supposed to be 
 inscribed upon a trophy :
 
 :i 
 
 78 THE GREEK ANTUOLOOY, 
 
 " This stone to Liars must grief to Athens bring, 
 Telling the might of Macedonia's kin<: 
 The deeds of Marathon are now disgraced, 
 The victories of Salamis effaced, 
 Before the points of Philip's spears abased. 
 Invoke the dead, Demosthenes ; in vain ! 
 To taunt both quick and dead I here remain." 
 
 In one of his greatest speeches, .Demosthenes had 
 taken those who died at Marathon, and in other ancient 
 battles, to witness that the resistance of the Athenians 
 to Philip was laudable. 
 
 Here is a short complimentary epigram on Alex- 
 ander's death, also by Addosus : 
 
 " Macetan Alexander's tomb, if called on to disclose, 
 
 Say that the world's two continents his'monument compose." 
 
 Macedonian is the word in the Greek, but the older 
 adjective Macetan has been used, as more manageable. 
 Here is a later epigram by Parmenio, alluding to 
 the story of the Pythian oracle having declared Alex- 
 ander to be invincible : 
 
 " The rumour's false that Alexander's dead, 
 Unless we hold that Phoebus told a lie : 
 ' Thou art invincible,' the Pythian said ; 
 And those that are invincible can't die." 
 
 This is a tribute by Agathias to his sister, who to 
 other accomplishments added the rather unusual one 
 of a knowledge of Law, her brother's profession the 
 translation somewhat simplified : 
 
 " Bright Beauty, Music, legal Lore, Eugenia did adorn : 
 Venus, the Muse, and Themis now for her their locks have 
 shorn."
 
 SEPULCHRAL. 79 
 
 This is a beautiful dirge on some lovely and beloved 
 object, said to be by Plato, and not unworthy of his 
 name : 
 
 " Aster, in life our Morning star, a lovely light you shed ; 
 And now you shine as Hesperus, a star among the Dead." 
 
 We shall conclude this section, auspiciously, we hope, 
 by a remarkable epitaph on a happy man. The name 
 is not given, but the critics generally consider that tho 
 subject of it was a certain Quintus Metellus, mentioned 
 by some minor historians, in whose case all the ele- 
 ments of good fortune concurred that are here enumer- 
 ated. Carphyllides is the author : 
 
 " View not my tomb with pity, passer-by : 
 No cause for tears o'er me, though doomed to die. 
 I've seen my children's children : a dear wife, 
 With me grown old, has cheered my lengthened life. 
 Three of my offspring, honourably wed, 
 Have given me grandsons from their fruitful bed, 
 Who in my lap have oft been lulled to sleep ; 
 For no disease or death e'er called to weep. 
 These, with due honours, blameless to my rest 
 Have sent me, in the region of the blest." 
 
 The Greek of the last phrase here used corresponds 
 very closely to Lady Nairne's " Laud of the leal."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AMATORY. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the differences which exist in char- 
 acter and manners between the Greeks and ourselves, 
 there could not fail to be a great community of feeling 
 in the chief passions and affections of human nature. 
 Both nations belong to one great and elevated 
 family of the human race ; neither of them can be 
 considered as savage or barbarian, or other than 
 highly civilised. Our languages have a great mutual 
 affinity; and in some respects we stand aloof from 
 other sections of humanity, whose institutions place 
 them in a position essentially different from * all 
 European races. As regards the relation of the sexes, 
 the great distinction arising from the presence or 
 absence of polygamy is of itself enough to assimilate 
 together those nations in which that source of female 
 degradation does not exist. Faulty as Greek manners 
 were, women were not treated as slaves or beasts of 
 burden. The Greek matron was condemned to a 
 certain seclusion, but she was held in respect; and 
 in many cases, as we have already seen, the married 
 life of the Greeks was one of affection and happiness.
 
 AMATORY. 81 
 
 Even the women that could not marry were not 
 cruelly treated, and were not despised, except at least 
 when they made an indiscriminate traffic of their 
 attractions. 
 
 The sentiment of love must turn in varying degrees 
 upon two elements the appreciation of personal 
 beauty, and the admiration or pleasure excited by 
 mental powers of one kind or other. To both of 
 these emotions the Greek mind was keenly alive, 
 though in the young or the superficial the mental at- 
 traction which would exert the greatest influence would 
 consist in the charm of conversational versatility, or 
 in some of the more sociable and pleasurable accom- 
 plishments. These, we have seen, could in general be 
 sought for only in those grades of the female sex which 
 held an inferior status ; but even with this class, 
 amiable, though temporary, attachments might exist 
 which would not be devoid of true affection. It 
 should never be forgot that in men whose minds were 
 of a higher and more serious order, a true and pure 
 passion might exist towards superior women, of which 
 there were not wanting remarkable examples. Menage 
 has an interesting treatise, dedicated to Madame Da- 
 cier, on the Female Philosophers of Greece ; and many 
 women there must have been who had great intellec- 
 tual powers without being professed philosophers. It 
 happens, besides, that our knowledge of the condition 
 of Greek women is derived in a great degree from 
 Athenian sources, referring thus to a locality where 
 respectable females of Greek parentage were kept in 
 closer seclusion than in other States. 
 
 A. c. vol. xx. r
 
 82 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 The Greek amatory epigrams deal largely in mytho- 
 logical views. Venus and Cupid meet us at every 
 turn ; though Venus had other attributes than those 
 which related to lovo. 
 
 This is a celebrated epigram upon Love that is, 
 Cupid by Meleager : 
 
 " Dreadful is Love ! dreadful ! but where's the good 
 That oft this cry of ' dreadful ' is renewed ? 
 The urchin laughs at us ; though o'er and o'er 
 Reproached, he's pleased ; reviled, he thrives the more. 
 Venus, thou sea-born Queen ! I much admire, 
 Thou, sprung from water, shouldst produce this fire ! " 
 
 One of the most beautiful of this class of epigrams 
 or it may be a fragment of a little poem which has 
 found its way into the Anthology is said to be by 
 Plato, and presents a lovely picture of the god of 
 Love laid asleep among roses, with the bees settling 
 upon his lips : 
 
 u We reached the grove's deep shadow, and there found 
 Cythera's son in sleep's sweet fetters bound, 
 Looking like ruddy apples on their tree : 
 No quiver and no bended bow had he ; 
 These were suspended on a leafy spray. 
 Himself in cups of roses cradled lay, 
 Smiling in sleep ; while, from their flight in air, \ 
 
 The brown bees to his soft lips made repair, V 
 
 To ply their waxen task, and leave their honey there." ) 
 
 "We shall have occasion to see that the Greeks had 
 two Venuses whom they worshipped one, the ordi- 
 nary or Earthly, the other the Heavenly Venus. In 
 like manner there were two Cupids corresponding to
 
 AMATORY. 83 
 
 that distinction. There are epigrams in the Anthology 
 referring specially to these several divinities. The 
 following epigram on the Heavenly Cupid is ascribed 
 to Marianus, and is quoted in Ogle's interesting book on 
 'Antiquities Explained,' where it is considered as illus- 
 trating a beautiful gem transmitted to us from antiquity. 
 It does not seem certain that this is strictly the ca.se ; 
 and we shall here insert the epigram independently, 
 without special reference to the gem in question. The 
 lines consist of a dialogue with Cupid, and sufficiently 
 explain themselves. The translation is Ogle's own, 
 a little altered : * 
 
 " Where now thy pliant bow and subtle darts ? 
 Those shafts that seek to pierce onr inmost hearts ? 
 Where now the wings that speed thy rapid flight? 
 Where now the torch that sheds a baneful light ? 
 Why do those hands three flowery garlands hear ? 
 And why u fourth restrain thy lovely hair?" 
 " Seek'st thou, good stranger, what I am to know ? 
 To no corporeal source my birth I owe. 
 No gross material mother nursed my frame ; 
 And all the Vulgar Venus I disclaim. 
 Men's souls by me to heavenly science rise, 
 And, fired with purer flames, possess the skies. 
 Four glorious wreaths my skilful hands entwine, 
 And Virtues four inspire the fair design. 
 Three of the garlands are about me spread, 
 And this, the wreath of Wisdom, binds my head." 
 
 The Earthly Cupid has a very different character ; 
 and the epigram that follows gives a lively and clever 
 
 * Ogle, p. 58.
 
 84 TUB GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 account of his pedigree and peculiarities. It is by 
 Meleagcr : 
 
 " No wonder Cupid is a murderous boy, 
 A fiery archer, making pain his joy. 
 His dam, while fond of Mars, is Vulcan's wife ; 
 And thus 'twixt fire and sword divides her life. 
 His mother's mother, too why, that's the Sea ! 
 When lashed with winds, a roaring fury she. 
 No father has he, and no father's kin : 
 'Tis through the mother all his faults flow in. 
 Thus has he Vulcan's flames, the wild Sea's rage, 
 And Mars's blood-stained darts his wars on us to wage." 
 
 Here is a fanciful account of the first entry of love 
 into a man's breast. Does it suggest that wine may 
 often have something to do Avith it? It is by Julian 
 the Egyptian, is a great favourite, and has often been 
 translated : 
 
 " Twining a wreath, I found, one day, 
 Love, that among the roses lay ; 
 Quick by the wings I caught him up, 
 And plunged him in the brimming cup. 
 Then urged by thirst's imperious call, 
 I drank the wine off, Love and all ; 
 And ever since, within my breast, 
 His tickling wings destroy my rest." 
 
 Here is one in which the connection between Love 
 and Wine is directly pointed out. It is by liufinus : 
 
 " My breast is armed with Eeason against Love : 
 One against one, he shan't victorious prove. 
 Though I'm a mortal, an immortal he, 
 Yet from the combat I will never flee. 
 But if he's joined by Bacchus, I'm undone : 
 Who could resist such odds of two to one ? "
 
 AMATORY. 85 
 
 We have already given several of Meleager's Sepul' 
 chral and Amatory epigrams ; but it may now be con- 
 venient to add such others of his on the subject of 
 Love as may best deserve our attention. 
 
 One of Meleager's favourite female friends bears the 
 graceful name of Zonophile if indeed she was not a 
 mere poetical creation, for the mistresses of poets have 
 not always been real personages. Wo shall give some 
 of the epigrams upon her without further introduction. 
 The first, which describes the advent of spring, is 
 translated by Professor Wilson himself, in a flowing 
 and spirited style : 
 
 " Tis now that the white violets steal out the spring to 
 
 greet, 
 And that among his longed-for showers Narcissus smiles 
 
 so sweet. 
 'Tis now that lilies, upland born, frequent the slopes of 
 
 green, 
 And that the flower that lovers love, of all the flowers the 
 
 queen, 
 
 Without an equal anywhere in full-blown beauty glows ; 
 Thou know'st it well, Zeuophile ! Persuasion's flower, the 
 
 Rose. 
 Ah ! why, ye hills and meadows, does bright laughter thus 
 
 illume 
 Your leafy haunts ? so lavish why, and prodigal of 
 
 bloom ? 
 Not all the wreaths of all the flowers that Spring herself 
 
 might cull 
 As mine own Virgin e'er could be one-half so beautiful ! " 
 
 The next, which celebrates the lady's musical powers, 
 is translated by Mr Hay :
 
 86 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " Tis a sweet strain, by Pan of Arcady ! 
 
 Which warbles from thy lyre with thrilling sound, 
 Zenophile. Oh ! how can I be free, 
 
 Since Loves on every side enclose me round, 
 Forbidding me to breathe a single hour 
 
 In peace 1 since first thy beauty, then thy lyre, 
 Thy grace, and then .... Oh ! words of feeble power, 
 
 Thy perfect all has set me all on tire." 
 
 Here is an epigram which it is supposed Bon Jonson 
 may have had in view in writing his beautiful song, 
 " Drink to me only with thine eyes : " 
 
 " The wine-cup is glad : dear Zenophile's lip 
 It boasts to have touched, when she stooped down to sip. 
 Happy wine-cup ! I wish that, with lips joined to mine, 
 All my soul at a draught she would drink up like wine," 
 
 Among the Sepulchral epigrams has been given Me- 
 leager's beautiful lament upon Heliodora's death. We 
 shall now insert one in an amatory strain, written before 
 that sad event, if indeed it refers to the same Helio- 
 dora. There are many translations of it in the " Black- 
 wood Papers," but we think it sufficient to select one 
 by Wilson, in the same free and joyous spirit which 
 his translations so often present : 
 
 " I'll frame, my Heliodora ! a garland for thy hair, 
 Which thou, in all thy beauty's pride, mayst not disdain 
 
 to wear ; 
 
 For I, with tender myrtles, white violets will twine 
 WhiUi violets, but not so piuv as that pure breast of thine : 
 With laughing lilies I will twine narcissus ; and the sweet 
 Crocus shall in its yellow hue with purple hyacinth meet :
 
 A MA TOR Y. 87 
 
 And I will twine with all the rest, and all the rest above, 
 Queen of them all, the red red Hose, the flower which 
 lovers love." 
 
 The following, which has "been much admired, but 
 has also occasioned some difficulty among critics, is 
 translated by Mr Hay. It is an address by a lover 
 who has come to the Hellespont, but is anxious to 
 return to the island of Cos, the residence of Phanion, 
 the object of his affection. He wishes the ships that 
 ;uv going southward to announce to the lady, if they 
 should see her, his speedy return, and to inform her 
 that when he is free he will not risk the dangers and 
 delays of a sea-voyage, but will come to her on foot 
 an achievement not easily accomplished literally, as 
 Cos is an island in the ^Egean. But the proposal to 
 come on foot may either be ascribed to the strength of 
 the poet's imagination, or to the prosaic fact that if 
 he came to the land nearest to Cos, there was but a 
 short sea passage interposed : 
 
 " Light barks of Helle's straits ! whose flagging sails 
 'Woo the embraces of the northern gales, 
 If on the strand that views the Coan steep 
 You see my Phanion gazing on the deep, 
 ' Thou beautiful ! ' say to her, ' these thy sighs 
 Hasten thy lover to thy longing eyes ; 
 Maiden beloved, I cannot wait the sea, 
 My eager feet will bring me soon to thee.' 
 Tell her these words, and Jove with favouring gales 
 Forthwith, at length, will fill your flagging sails." 
 
 We shall conclude our extracts from Meleager with 
 two epigrams on Cupid which are well known, but
 
 88 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 which seem to be distinguished more for liveliness and 
 ingenuity than for much beauty. 
 
 The first may be called the "Hue and Cry after 
 Cupid" a name which Ben Jonson has given to a 
 very graceful masque embodying all the best ideas on 
 the subject of the epigrammatists and other poets. 
 Jonson's own poem has a proclamation beginning with 
 this question : 
 
 " Beauties, have you seen this toy, 
 Called Love, a little boy, 
 Almost naked, wanton, blind, 
 Cruel now, and then as kind 1 
 If he be among you, say : 
 He is Venus' Kunaway." 
 
 The whole of the poem is in the true Greek spirit, and 
 deserves to be looked into. Of Meleager's " Hue and 
 Cry" we give a translation by Merivale, noticing 
 merely that Lesbia's name is substituted for Zeno- 
 phile's, as being shorter, for the rhythm's sake : 
 
 " Love, I proclaim, the vagrant child, 
 Who, even now, at dawn of day, 
 Stole from his bed and flew away. 
 He's wont to weep, as though he smiled, 
 For ever prattling, swift, and daring ; 
 Laughs with wide mouth and wrinkled nose ; 
 Wing'd on the back, and always bearing 
 A quiver, rattling as he goes. 
 Unknown the author of his birth ; 
 For Air, 'tis certain, ne'er begot 
 The saucy boy ; and as for Earth 
 And Sea, both swear they own him not : 
 To all and everywhere a foe.
 
 AMATORY. 89 
 
 But you must look and keep good watch, 
 Lest he should still around you throw 
 Fresh nets, unwary souls to catch. 
 Stay, while I yet am speaking, lo ! 
 There, there he sits like one forbidden ; 
 And did you hope to 'scape me so 
 In Lesbia's eyes, you truant, hidden ? " 
 
 The remaining epigram on Cupid relates to the pro- 
 posal to sell the fugitive after he lias been caught. 
 The translation is by Mr Hay : 
 
 " Sold he must be there, while he lies asleep 
 On his own mother's breast ; I cannot keep 
 The'bold, pert imp, the jeering winged pest 
 Whose active talons never are at rest. 
 The chattering, fearless creature, full of wiles, 
 With tearful eyes suffused, with roguish smiles, 
 Eyes looking darts, whose glances all inilame, 
 Whose wildness even his mother cannot tame ! 
 Sold he must be the monster ; buy him, pray, 
 i Good stranger, only bear him far away. 
 
 Stop, stop, he weeps sold, dear, thou shalt not be, 
 But dwell a pet with my Zenophile." 
 
 We give now an epigram by Rufinus referring to a 
 garland sent to Rhodoclea, which may well match with 
 Meleager's to Heliodora. The translation is by Mr 
 Hay, but his last four lines have been condensed into 
 two, which makes it correspond in length with the 
 Greek original : 
 
 " This crown of fairest flowers, my Rhodocle, 
 Which my own hands have wreathed, I send to thee : 
 The lily, the anemone, moist with dew, 
 The rose, narcissus, and the violet blue.
 
 90 T1IK GREKK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Thus crowned, let no vain thoughts thy mind invade, 
 Thou, and the wreath, Loth bloom, and both must fade." 
 
 "We shall now add two more Love epigrams, by 
 Ilufmus, which exhibit considerable elegance : 
 
 " Where now Praxiteles ? Where the skilful art 
 Of Polycleitus, that could life impart 1 
 Who will mould Melete's sweet-scented hair, 
 Her lustrous eyes, her neck, like ivory fair ? 
 Sculptors and casters, sure we owe a shrine 
 To her bright form as to a power divine." 
 
 Here is another, much admired and copied by several 
 modern Latin poets : 
 
 " The eyes of Juno, Melete, are thine, 
 Minerva's hands, and Venus' breasts divine 
 While thy fair feet like Thetis' ankles 
 Happy is he who sees thee ; he who hears 
 Thy voice melodious, trebly blest appears : 
 Who woos thee has a demigod's delight ; 
 And he who wins thee is immortal quite." 
 
 The feet of Thetis were particular objects of admira- 
 tion, and " silver - footed " was her peculiar epithet. 
 The last lines of the epigram remind one of Sappho's 
 ode : 
 
 " Blest as the immortal gods is he, 
 The youth that fondly sits by thee." 
 
 The next epigram that we shall give is by Agathias, 
 and is often quoted, though perhaps it does not pos- 
 sess any high degree of excellence. The translation 
 is by Mr Hay, a good deal altered : 
 
 ivine ; > 
 shine. )
 
 A MA TOR Y. 91 
 
 " The livelong night I spend in woe. 
 
 And when the dawn appears, 
 That might bring rest to soothe my breast, 
 
 And wipe away my tears ; . 
 These envious swallows haunt my door, 
 
 With pipe so loud and shrill, 
 They will not leave me to repose, 
 
 But twitter, twitter, still. 
 Ye chatterers, cease ; I did no harm 
 
 To Philomela's tongue : 
 Go to the hoopoe's desert haunts, 
 
 And there your woes prolong ; 
 And while you mourn poor Itys' fate, 
 
 Perchance Rhodanthe's charms 
 May glow in dreams of blissful rest, 
 
 Within these longing arms." 
 
 The story of Progne, Philomela, Tereus, and Itys is 
 too well known to require repetition here. 
 
 The ideas and images suggested by the passions or 
 strong affections of humanity are wonderfully alike in 
 various forms of society and literature. Nothing seems 
 more natural than the utterance of the wishes of lovers 
 to be transmuted into some object that will place them 
 in proximity to the person beloved. Here are speci- 
 mens from the Greek. The first is by Callistratus, 
 who flourished in the second century B.c. It is trans- 
 lated, we think, by Merivale : 
 
 " I wish I were an ivory lyrc- 
 
 A lyre of burnished ivory 
 That to the Dionysian choir 
 Blooming boys might carry me :
 
 92 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Or would I were a, chalice bright 
 Of virgin gold by fire untried, 
 
 For virgin chaste as morning light 
 To bear me to the altar-side." 
 
 Imitated by Moore thus, in his collection of Epistles 
 and Odes : 
 
 " If I were yonder conch of gold, 
 And thou the pearl within it placed," &c. 
 
 This is by Anacreon, also translated by Mcrivale. 
 After referring to the transmutation of Kiobe arid 
 Progne, the poet continues : 
 
 " But I would be a mirror, 
 
 So thou mayst pleas'd behold me ; 
 Or robe, with close embraces 
 
 About thy limbs to fold me ; 
 A crystal fount, to lave thee ; 
 
 Sweet oils, thy hair to deck ; 
 A zone, to press thy bosom ; 
 
 Or pearl, to gem thy neck : 
 Or, might I worship at thy feet, 
 
 A sandal for thy feet I'd be ; 
 E'en to be trodden on were sweet, 
 
 If to be trodden on by thee." 
 
 Here is another, also, we think, very beautiful. It is 
 by some ascribed to Rufinus, by others to Dionysius 
 the Sophist while others, again, describe it as of un- 
 certain parentage. Mr Merivale has translated it so 
 far, but for some reason or other has omitted the last 
 couplet as it appears in the Planudean Anthology. 
 This we shall endeavour to supply, while we adopt Mr
 
 AM A TOR Y. 93 
 
 Mcrivale's version as far as it goes, with a slight alter- 
 ation to bring it nearer the original : 
 
 " Oh that I were some gentle air, 
 
 That when the heats of summer glow, 
 And lay thy panting bosom bare, 
 
 I mi^'ht upon that bosom blow ! 
 Oh that I were yon blushing rose, 
 
 Which even now thy hands have pressed, 
 That I might love in sweet repose, 
 
 Reclining on thy snowy breast ! 
 Oh that I were a lily fair, 
 
 That, culled by fingers fairer still, 
 I might thy every movement share, 
 
 And on thy beauty gaze my fill ! " 
 
 See how modern feelings are apt to run, as Christopher 
 North says, 'into the same sort of amorous fancy." 
 Komeo in Shakespeare breathes the wish 
 
 " Oli that I were a glove upon that hand, 
 That I might touch that cheek ! " 
 
 Christopher also appropriately refers to Burns : 
 
 " O that my love were yon red rose 
 That grows upon the castle wa', 
 And I myself a drap o' dew, 
 Into her bonny breast to fa' ! " 
 O, there, beyond expression blest, 
 I'd feast on beauty a' the nicht, 
 Sunk on her silk-saft faulds to rest, 
 Till fley'd awa' by Phoebus' licht." 
 
 Shakespeare, though no great scholar, had himself lived 
 among profound and accomplished scholars. But 
 Burns, we should think, knew little or nothing of
 
 94 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 the Greek anthologists ; yet see how he fell into their 
 style, and instinctively adopted their spirit. Here is 
 another example. There is an anonymous Greek 
 epigram which may be thus translated : 
 
 " Two evils, Poverty and Love, 
 
 My anxious bosom tear ; 
 The one my heart would little move, 
 But Love I cannot bear." 
 
 What is this but Burns's passionate lament 1 
 
 " poortith cauld, and restless love, 
 Ye wreck my peace between ye : 
 But poortith a' I could forgie, 
 An' 'twerena for my Jeanie." 
 
 Again, the exquisite "Posie" of our Scottish bard 
 equals and surpasses those garlands sent to their 
 mistresses by Meleager and Eufinus, which we have 
 above quoted. The truth is, that all these poets, 
 Greek and British, had the same schoolmistress, 
 Nature, who teaches her pupils a universal language. 
 
 Two or three smaller epigrams of this class may 
 here be given. This is said to be by Plato : 
 
 " My star, thou view'st the stars on high : 
 Would that I were that spangled sky, 
 That I, thence looking down on thee, 
 With all its eyes thy charms might see." 
 
 This is also ascribed to Plato, and it is certain that 
 when a young man he wrote several amatory poems : 
 
 " My soul, love, on my lips, while kissing thee, 
 Fluttered and longed to flit across from me."
 
 AMATORY. 95 
 
 This is by Capito : 
 
 " Beauty, on wliich no graces wait, 
 
 May please, but not retain ; 
 Just as, without the barb, the bait 
 Floats useless 011 the main." 
 
 This is by Asclepiades : 
 
 " Sweet to the thirsty man is snow, to quench the summer's 
 
 heat ; 
 The winter's end, the spring's return, to sailors too is 
 
 sweet ; 
 But sweeter far when lovers twain have found a blissful 
 
 bower, 
 Where mutual vows and mutual love will speed each 
 
 happy hour." 
 
 This is anonymous : 
 
 " Venus, if men at sea you save, 
 And rescue i'roni the whelming wave, 
 Me, too, a lover, I implore, 
 Save from worse shipwreck here on shore." 
 
 This epigram, by Callimachus, was admired and para- 
 phrased by Horace : 
 
 " The hunter, in the mountains, every roe, 
 And every hare, pursues through frost and snow, 
 Tracking their footsteps. But if some one say, 
 ' See ! here's a beast struck down,' he turns away. 
 Such is my love : I chase the flying game, 
 And pass with coldness the self-offering dame." 
 
 "We may include in this chapter a fantastic epigram 
 by Agathias cm the loves of Venus and Anchises. 
 Anchises in his old age still desires to testify his 
 devotion to the goddess, and presents her with the
 
 96 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 only black hair he can find in his head, addressing her 
 at the same time in these words : 
 
 " Venus, thy spouse Anchises, whose young love 
 Oft drew thy footsteps to the Idsean grove, 
 Brings one dark hair, with difficulty found, 
 Sole relic of that age when joys abound. 
 Thou, goddess (for thou canst), his youth restore, 
 Or take grey hairs for what he was of yore." 
 
 Henry Stephens, for want, no doubt, of something 
 better to do, gave 105 Latin translations of this last 
 couplet. 
 
 We shall now conclude our amatory extracts with an 
 epigram by Theocritus on the HEAVENLY VENUS : 
 
 " Venus, but not the Vulgar one, you view : 
 Call her the Heavenly ; 'tis her title due. 
 Her image here Chrysogone, the chaste, 
 Within the house of Amphicles has placed, 
 With whom a happy married life she led, 
 And many goodly children bore and bred. 
 Each rolling year was better than the past, 
 Flowing from thee, Divine One, first and last : 
 For they who gratefully the gods adore, 
 Still find their joys increasing more and more."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DIDACTIC. 
 
 THE next class of epigrams on which wo shall enter is 
 the Didactic, or Gnomic, as they may be called 
 those, namely, that relate to the knowledge of life and 
 duty, and which involve the maxims, precepts, or 
 prudential rules by which our conduct may be guided. 
 It deserves to be remembered that the dissemination 
 of such truths and precepts was an early part of the 
 system that led to inscriptional writings. Hipparchus, 
 as we have already indicated, added to the more direct 
 announcements of the Hernia?, or landmarks put up by 
 him, a set of moral sentences for popular instruction ; 
 and some of these have been handed down to us. 
 Here is an example. The original consisted of an 
 hexameter and pentameter line. The hexameter on 
 one side of the Hermes described the locality ; the 
 pentameter on the other set forth the name of the 
 party erecting the imago, with the moral precept 
 meant to be inculcated thus : 
 
 " This Hermes stands where Thria and the city's limits 
 
 meet: 
 Hipparchus raised this monument : LET JUSTICE QUIDS 
 
 YOUR FEET." 
 
 A. o. vol. xx. a
 
 98 THE GREEK AXTHOLOGY. 
 
 There is another, of which the first line is lost; the 
 last is preserved : 
 
 " The Deme of ... here begins : the city's precincts 
 
 end : 
 TTipparclms raised this monument : NEVER DECEIVE A 
 
 FKIEND." 
 
 At a later period such precepts or truths would be 
 inscribed anywhere, according to individual taste or 
 fancy, wherever there was a vacant slab or an avail- 
 able pillar, on a summer-house or in a dwelling, as was 
 done by the eccentric Englishman who put up the 
 motto of " Waste not, want not " in his kitchen, not, 
 probably, without some necessity for the admonition ; 
 and often such sayings would have no other existence 
 than as literary efforts to be read or committed to 
 memory, which their metrical form would facilitate. 
 
 One of the most excellent of this class of epigrams 
 appears in the form of a model prayer by a pious and 
 enlightened heathen, such as Socrates might be sup- 
 posed to have preferred. It is anonymous : 
 
 " Asked or unasked, things good, great Jove, supply : 
 Things evil, though we ask for them, deny." 
 
 This is like the prayer recommended by Juvenal in 
 his celebrated tenth satire, and imported by Johnson 
 into his " Vanity of Human Wishes : " 
 
 " Still raise for Good the supplicating voice, 
 But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice." 
 
 Of special blessings to be desired, one of the most 
 frequent is that of mediocrity of fortune : " Give nie
 
 DIDACTIC. 09 
 
 neither poverty nor riches." Here are some examples. 
 The first is by Parmenio, translated by Mr Hay : 
 
 " Enough for me this cloak, though homely spun ; 
 Fed on the flowers of song, your feasts I shun : 
 I hate your wealthy fool the flatterer's god 
 Nor hang I trembling on his awful nod : 
 Calm and contented, I have learned to feel 
 The blessed freedom of a humble meal." 
 
 Here is another by Alpheus of Mitylene, quaint, anil 
 often translated by Latin versifiers : 
 
 " I care not for those wide and fertile fields, 
 
 Nor all the wealth that Gyges held in fee : 
 What joy a self-sufficing fortune yields, 
 Such modest livelihood is dear to me. 
 The wise old maxim, ' Not too much' 
 Too much has power my heart to touch." 
 
 The just appreciation of wealth, and the knowledge 
 of its true uses, is a favourite subject. 
 
 This is by Lucian, the translation partly by Hay : 
 
 " Enjoy your goods as if your death were near : 
 Save them as if 'twere distant many a year. 
 Sparing or spending, be thy wisdom seen 
 In keeping ever to the gulden mean." 
 
 Or thus : 
 
 " Wise is tne man, prepared for either end, 
 Who in due measure can both spare and spend." 
 
 This is upon a miser, anonymous : 
 
 " All say that you are rich : I say, Not so : 
 You're poor : wealth only by its use we know. 
 What you enjoy is yours : what for your heirs 
 You hoard, already is not yours but theirs."
 
 100 TIIK GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 This is by Paul the Silentiary, translated by Hay : 
 
 " No gracious boon is life, if vexing cares 
 Wither the temples with thin hoary hairs 
 Be mine enough since too much golden store 
 Always corrodes the maddened heart the more. 
 Thence better oft, amid this mortal strife, 
 Is poverty than riches, death than life. 
 Since thus it is, on Wisdom fix thy gaze ; 
 Hers thy heart's wishes, hers be all its ways." 
 
 This, again, is upon a miser, by Lucillius : 
 
 " Yours is a pauper's soul, a rich man's pelf : 
 Kich to your heirs, a pauper to yourself." 
 
 The transitory nature of property is thus depicted by 
 an unknown writer. A field is personified as speak- 
 ing : 
 
 " Once I was Achnemenides's field : 
 He to Menippus now his claim must yield. 
 Thus I for ever pass from hand to hand, 
 And each possessor thinks me his own land. 
 All of them think so ; but they all are wrong ; 
 To none, but Fortune only, I belong." 
 
 The following reflection upon the succession of heirs, 
 said to be by Simonides, is to the same effect : 
 
 " My heir rejoices when I die ; and so 
 His heir will do, when he in turn shall go : 
 This debt we all of us to nature owe." 
 
 It is a great question whether life on the whole is 
 happy or the reverse. Archias, who, without being 
 original, is often elegant, commends the Thracians for 
 their views in this respect. The translation is a little
 
 DIDACTIC. 101 
 
 altered from Hay's, and a couplet borrowed from Bland 
 has been added : 
 
 ^ Praiseworthy are the Thracians, who lament 
 
 The infant that hath left its mother's womb : 
 Who deem those happy, too, whom Death has sent 
 
 Without prevision to the peaceful tomb. 
 Well in their grief and gladness is express'd 
 That Life is labour, and that Death is rest." 
 
 Two epigrams are well known as advocating opposite 
 views of human life, the one maintaining that no 
 course or career is satisfactory, and that, as Silenus 
 was said to have taught, it is better either to have 
 never been born, or immediately to die ; the other, 
 that every path or position in life has its advan- 
 tages, and that life on the whole is a boon and a 
 source of enjoyment. 
 
 The epigram against Life is by Posidippus, or, as 
 some say, Crates. The translation is by Hay : 
 
 " Which the best way of life ? The forum rings 
 With bickering brawls ; home, too, vexation brings : 
 Toil in the country, terror reigns at sea : 
 Abroad wealth trembles lest its goods may flee ; 
 And want is woe : trouble, thy name is wife : 
 A single is a solitary life : 
 Children are cares ; cheerless a childless state : 
 Youth is but folly ; weak a hoary pate. 
 Since thus it is, a wise man still should cry 
 Ne'er to be born, or being born to die." 
 
 The opposite side of the argument is maintained by 
 Metrodorus, the translation slightly altered from 
 Hay's :
 
 102 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " Good all the ways of life : the forum rings 
 With deeds of glorious enterprise ; home brings 
 Sweet rest ; the charms of Nature clothe the fields ; 
 The sea brings gain : abroad wealth honour yields : 
 Want may be hid ; comfort, thy name is wife : 
 A single is a free and easy life. 
 Children are joys : cares shun the childless bed : 
 Strength attends youth ; reverence the hoary head. 
 Since thus it is, a wise man's choice should be, 
 Both to be born, and born such good to see." 
 
 Whether life on the whole be a success or a failure, 
 there can be no doubt that it is uncertain, both in its 
 tenure and duration, and that at the best its enjoyments 
 are fleeting and perishable. Hear, on this subject, a 
 strain from our old friend Simonides, though it is 
 liker an elegy than an epigram. The translation we 
 give is by Merivale : 
 
 " All human things are subject to decay : 
 And well the man of Chios tuned his lay 
 * Like leaves on trees the race of man is found ; ' 
 Yet few receive the melancholy sound, 
 Or in their breasts imprint this solemn truth, 
 For hope is near to all, but most to youth. 
 Hope's vernal season leads the laughing hour? 
 And strews o'er every path the fairest flowers : 
 To cloud the scene, no distant mists appear ; 
 Age moves no thought, and death awakes no fear. 
 Ah ! how unmindful is the giddy crowd 
 Of the small span to youth and life allowed ! 
 Ye who reflect, the short-lived good employ ; 
 And while the power remains, indulge your joy." 
 
 Some of this translation is too free ; and to the four
 
 DIDACTIC. 103 
 
 lines beginning " Hope's vernal season," we should 
 prefer the following, as closer to the original : 
 
 " While the light heart the joys of youth deceive, 
 We dream of tilings we never can achieve. 
 Age moves no thought, and death awakes no fear : 
 Nor look we for disease while health is here." 
 
 This is by Lucian : 
 
 " Things owned by mortals needs must mortal be, 
 Away our hest possessions from us flee ; 
 And if at times they seem disposed to stay, 
 Then we from them too quickly ilee away." 
 
 This is anonymous : 
 
 "Short is the rose's bloom ; another morn 
 Will show no rose, but, in its stead, a thorn." 
 
 Regarding life as thus uncertain and transitory, the 
 great question comes to be, in what manner it shall 
 best be passed, so as to secure the blessings which it is 
 capable of yielding. Two opposite views on this sub- 
 ject will always be taken by different schools of 
 thought and morals. Labour and virtue will be the 
 resources of the one, and pleasure and .self-indulgence 
 of the other. Simonides, we are glad to say, wiJl bo 
 found here to have chosen the better part, though now 
 and then he may seem to relax the strictness of his 
 tone. His fragment upon Virtue is worthy of all 
 praise. The translation we give is partly borrowed 
 from Mr Hay : 
 
 M 'Tis Raid that Virtue dwells sublime 
 On rugged cl ill's, full hard to climb,
 
 104 TUE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Where round her ranged, a sacred band 
 Acknowledge her divine command ; 
 But mortal ne'er her form may see, 
 Unless his restless energy 
 Breaks forth in sweat that gains the goal, 
 The perfect manhood of the soul." 
 
 The allusion to " sweat " as the outward token of 
 generous exertion is frequent in the best Greek poets. 
 Thus Hesiod, as translated by Elton : 
 
 " Where Virtue dwells, the gods have placed before 
 The dropping sweat that springs from every pore, 
 And ere the feet can reach her bright abode, 
 Long, rugged, steep the ascent, and rough the road. 
 The ridge once gained, the path so hard of late 
 B,uns easy on, and level with the gate." 
 
 The two following epigrams may also be referred to. 
 They purport to contain the words that "Juno would 
 have spoken," when Hercules on his deification was 
 admitted to Olympus. They are both anonymous : 
 
 " Now, Hercules, your virtue's generous sweat 
 Has from your sire this bright requital met 
 After its round of conflicts, labour gains 
 Unbounded honour to reward its pains." 
 
 " Labour and mighty sweat have for you gained 
 This grace, a seat in heaven, by none before attained." 
 
 Another epigram by Onestes has a close resemblance 
 to some of those we have just quoted : 
 
 " You toiled up Helicon ; but nectar, poured 
 t From the Pegasian well, your strength restored : 
 So Wisdom's path is steep ; but, gained the height, 
 The Muses' gifts will fill you with delight."
 
 DIDACTIC. 105 
 
 It should be observed that in classical writers the 
 Muses do not represent, as they often do with us, the 
 powers of poetry or even of literature only, but 
 embrace the whole range of the sciences, including 
 physical science. Thus Virgil, in his Second Georgic, 
 describing the objects of his ambition, speaks in these 
 terms : 
 
 " Ye sacred Muses ! with whose beauty fired 
 My soul is ravished and my brain inspired, 
 Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear, 
 Would you your poet's first petition hear, 
 Give me the ways of wandering stars to know, 
 The depths of heaven above, and earth below," &c. 
 
 This that follows is a noble strain in praise of Equa- 
 nimity, by Archilochus, which we here give, though 
 his era is earlier than that of the proper epigram- 
 matists. The translation is Mr Hay's, somewhat 
 altered : 
 
 " Toss'd on a sea of troubles, Soul, my Soul, 
 
 Thyself do thou control ; 
 And to the weapons of advancing foes 
 A stubborn breast oppose ; 
 Undaunted 'mid the hostile might 
 Of squadrons burning for the fight. 
 
 Thine be no boasting, when the victor's crown 
 
 Wins thee deserved renown ; 
 Thine no dejected sorrow, when defeat 
 Would urge a base retreat : 
 Rejoice in joyous things nor overmuch 
 
 Let grief thy bosom touch 
 'Midst evil, and still bear in mind, 
 How changeful are the ways of humankind."
 
 106 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Let us add one or two more of these high-minded 
 compositions. 
 
 This is a versification of a celebrated thought ex- 
 pressed by Thales ; it is by Luciau : 
 
 " Committing wrong, the chance may be that you elude 
 
 men's eyes ; 
 You never can elude the gods, when wrong you e'en 
 
 devise." 
 
 What follows is said to be the precept of a Pythian 
 oracle : 
 
 " Cleansed in thy soul, enter the holy place 
 
 Of the pure god, touching the lustral wave ; 
 The good need little water, but the base 
 
 Free from their guilt not ocean's self can lave." 
 
 The contemplation of death is necessarily in its 
 various aspects present to the minds of all thinking 
 men, and there are many Greek epigrams upon it, 
 some of them dealing with it in a high and noble 
 spirit, and others seeking to use it chiefly as an in- 
 centive to present enjoyment. It is not every one 
 of our pagan friends who realised the wise wisli of 
 Martial, that he might always be able 
 
 " To look on life with placid eye, 
 And neither fear nor wish to die." 
 
 But the Greek poets were not generally cowards in 
 this matter. This by Agathias is a fair specimen. 
 The version is chiefly taken from Bland : 
 
 " Why fear ye death, the parent of repose, 
 That pats an end to penury and pain ?
 
 DIDACTIC. 107 
 
 His presence once, and only once, he shows, 
 
 And none have seen him e'er return again. 
 But maladies of every varying hue 
 In thick succession human life pursue." 
 
 /Kschylus had anticipated this last idea by writing of 
 death as the only "healer of irremediable ills." 
 
 The following epigram by ^Esopus takes a some- 
 what similar view of death as a remedy. The trans- 
 lation is by Dr Wellesley : 
 
 " From tliee, life ! and from thy myriad woes, 
 Who but by death can flee or find repose ? 
 For though sweet Nature's beauties gladden thee, 
 The sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the sea, 
 All else is fear und grief ; and each success 
 Brings its retributive unhappiness." 
 
 We are not indiscriminately fond of Palladas's 
 epigrams, though Erasmus is said to have admired 
 them. Some of them are repulsive ; but the follow- 
 ing, though exaggerated, aims at a higher tone. It 
 is uncertain whether Palladas was a Christian : 
 
 " The Body is a torture to the Soul ; 
 A hell, a fate, a load, a stern control, 
 That weighs it to the ground with many woes, 
 Nor e'er allows it to enjoy repose. 
 But from the Body, as from Death, set free, 
 It ilies to God and Immortality." 
 
 We shall here insert another by Palladas as to the 
 advantages of the mediocrity of fortune : 
 
 " Envy, as Pindar has averred, 
 To Pity should be much preferred : 
 The envied have a brilliant fate ; 
 Pity is given where griefs are great.
 
 108 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 But I would wish alike to be 
 From pity and from envy free. 
 A mean is best : high places know 
 Great perils : scorn still haunts the low. 
 
 Many of the epigrammatists, it must be confessed, 
 make the shortness and uncertainty of life ami the 
 certainty of death an argument for conviviality. Ex- 
 hortations such as we are now to introduce are common. 
 The first one is anonymous ; the translation com- 
 pounded from Bland and Wellesley : 
 
 " Drink and be glad : to-morrow what may he, 
 Or what thereafter, none of us can see. 
 Haste not nor fret : but now as well's you may, 
 Feast and be merry ; freely give away ; 
 Remember joye can last but with the breath, 
 And think how short a space parts life and death ; 
 An instant : seize what good may now befall ; 
 Dead, thou hast nothing, and another all." 
 
 Tliis, to the same effect, is by Palladas ; the version is 
 j tartly Hay's : 
 
 " To die is due by all : no mortal knows 
 Whether to-morrow's dawn his life may close. 
 Knowing this well, O man, let cheering wine, 
 That sweet forgetfulness of death, be thine. 
 Give way to love too : live from day to day, 
 And yield to Fate o'er all things else the sway." 
 
 This next remonstrance obviously comes from a volup- 
 tuary, who, besides thinking a bird in the hand worth 
 two in the bush, prefers that any expensive offerings 
 should be given when he can feel the good of them, 
 rather than when he is incapable of doing so. It is 
 anonymous the translation by Merivale :
 
 DIDACTIC. 109 
 
 u Seek not to glad these senseless stones 
 
 With fragrant ointments, rosy wreaths ; 
 No warmth can reach our mouldering bones 
 
 From lustral fire that vainly breathes. 
 Now let me revel whilst I may : 
 
 The wine that o'er my grave is shed 
 Mixes with earth and turns to clay : 
 
 No honours can delight the dead." 
 
 "We may here advert to a practice that seems to 
 have been observed in Greece, connected with the feel- 
 ings which we are describing, and which presents a 
 melancholy and to Christian minds a miserable, feel- 
 ing. The Greeks, it is generally thought, did not use 
 skeletons and death's-heads as funeral emblems, but 
 rather represented death on their monuments under 
 the form of Sleep, in the act often of extinguishing a 
 torch. But they did use, or at least the voluptuaries 
 among them used, the more painful reminiscences of 
 death as incentives to social indulgences. A very 
 singular epigram has been preserved illustrating this 
 practice. It is by Polemo, and seems to refer to 
 some gem or ornament of a convivial tendency ; and, 
 indeed, the last couplet is said to have been found in- 
 scribed on a gem : 
 
 "The poor man's armour see ! this flask and bread, 
 This wreath of dewy leaves to deck the head ; 
 This bone, too, of a dead man's brain the shell, 
 The Soul's supreme and holy citadel. 
 The carving says, ' Drink, eat, and twine your flowers ; 
 This dead man's state will presently be ours.' " 
 
 Herodotus tells us that the old Egyptians at their
 
 110 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 banquets used to send round a wooden form of a 
 skeleton with this exhortation " Looking upon this, 
 irink and enjoy yourself; for when you are dead you 
 will be like this." Plutarch says of this custom that 
 though it was unseemly, yet it had this use, " to incite 
 the spectators not to luxury and drunkenness, but to 
 mutual love and friendship," which is, to say the 
 least, somewhat doubtful. 
 
 We are afraid that, upon the whole, temperance in 
 the use of wine was not a conspicuous virtue among the 
 Greeks, or at least among the Athenians. Their tendency 
 to indulgence in this respect may be inferred not merely 
 from their dramatists and miscellaneous writers, but 
 also from the philosophical accounts of their Symposia, 
 as represented by Plato and Xenophon, though they 
 seem to have submitted to certain restraints of a 
 rather peculiar kind. There was an idea that drinking 
 was not generally allowable to young men, but was a 
 privilege of the old, who needed it more ; and Socrates 
 in Plato lays it also down as a medical rule that drink- 
 ing should not take place on two consecutive evenings. 
 The conversations, of course, would vary according to 
 the character of the guests ; but if Plato's writings are 
 to be held as founded on fact, it is clear that very late 
 and long sittings must have been thus spent. Such 
 excesses were all the more likely to take place, and to 
 become exaggerated, from the exclusion of women 
 from their feasts ; and when once established, the con- 
 versational propensities of the Greeks, or at least of the 
 Athenians, would make them frequent and favourite 
 enjoyments.
 
 DIDACTIC. Ill 
 
 The customs of different countries in these respects 
 are well worth observing, Probably the French, of all 
 other nations, most nearly approach to the Greeks in 
 conversational powers and propensities ; but the forms 
 of French society and some of their national virtues, 
 their courtesy to women, and their habitual temper- 
 ance, led to this result, that the drawing-rooms or ladies' 
 apartments were the Ordinary scenes of their conversa- 
 tional displays, and that women not only held their 
 own part but took the lead in these reunions. On 
 the other hand, English ladies have their share of con- 
 versation, but a peculiarity exists in English society 
 little known elsewhere. Talleyrand, we believe, ex- 
 pressed the opinion that the half-hour, more or less, 
 passed by men in England over their wine, after the 
 ladies have left the dinner - table, is an important 
 adjunct to the British constitution. Englishmen seem 
 to need some wire to brighten their faculties ; when 
 left alone in this way they can talk freely on all pub- 
 lic subjects without mixing up ladies with .politics, 
 and a tone, it is thought, is attained, among political 
 thinkers, of moderation, courtesy, and mutual' forbear- 
 ance, eminently conducive to that most important 
 object, the predominance of good sense and sound 
 judgment in all public matters. 
 
 The freedom of conviviality adopted and enjoined 
 by the Greeks may be seen in some of their popular 
 sayings ; and among others, in the proverb which 
 denounced as a nuisance any bottle-companion that 
 has "a good memory." This idea is vigorously ex- 
 panded in the following epigram by Antipater :
 
 112 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " Not the setting of the Pleiades so fearful is to me, 
 
 Not the howling round the rugged rock of a wild and 
 stormy sea, 
 
 Not the flash that fires the mighty heavens, as the water- 
 drinking fellow, 
 
 Who remembers and repeats the things we said when we 
 were mellow." 
 
 We suspect we must hold that both Plato and Xeno- 
 phon come, strictly speaking, under the censure of 
 being convivial companions who " remember and re- 
 peat " what passes at wine-parties ; for many of their 
 reminiscences relate to scenes where wine has had a 
 good deal to do with the conversation; but the world will 
 not regret that in this respect they should have trans- 
 gressed the rule imposed on ordinary convivialities. 
 
 It ought here to be mentioned that the character of 
 the Greek wine generally was such that all but the 
 grossly intemperate diluted it largely with water. 
 Even the mixture of half-and-half was thought too 
 .strong. Several epigrams contain allusions to this 
 subject. This is by Meleager. The nymphs are the 
 impersonation of water : 
 
 " Bacchus, from Semele's scorched body saved, 
 The Nymphs received, and with pure water laved. 
 Hence he and they are friends : if you decline 
 To let them mix, you'll swallow fire for wine." 
 
 Carousals were generally conducted according to some 
 method prescribed or enforced by a chosen president 
 or symposiarch, as he was called. The great distinc- 
 tion was whether the drinking should be compulsory or 
 optional as to quantity, men of sense of course prefer-
 
 DIDACTIC. 113 
 
 ring the voluntary system. This is illustrated by the 
 following epigram by Onestes : 
 
 " Freedom in drinking always is the best : 
 Force is an insult to both wine and guest. 
 Some on the ground their wine will slily pour ; 
 Some under ground may sink to Lethe's shore. 
 Away, ye sots ! the needs of natural joy 
 A modest measure amply will supply." 
 
 We do not think it necessary to lay before our readers 
 more of these convivial verses, or to give them any of 
 the Anacreontic class, with which most people must 
 be familiar in some shape or other. The best imita- 
 tion in English of the Anacreontic style is perhaps io 
 bo found in Cowley's smaller poems. 
 
 This section may be concluded by a few miscel- 
 laneous epigrams on general life and manners. 
 
 The first we give is a fanciful supplication to two 
 of our faculties, by Macedonius. It reminds us of the 
 saying of Themistocles, when Simonides proposed to 
 teach him Mnemonics, or the art of memory, that he 
 would rather learn the art of forgetfulness : 
 
 " Memory, and thou, Forgetfulness, all hail ! 
 Each in her province greatly may avail. 
 Memory, of all things good remind us still : 
 Forgetfulness, obliterate all that's ill." 
 
 This is a kind of counterpart, by the same author : 
 
 " Memory, and thou, Forgetful ness, not yet 
 Your powers in liapjjy harmony I find: 
 One oft recalls what I would fain f'orp-1, 
 
 And one blots out what I would bear in mind." 
 A. C. Vol. XX. H
 
 114 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 This, which is anonymous, embodies the well-known 
 saying of Anaxagoras, that every place is at the same 
 distance from the infernal regions : 
 
 " Straight the descent to Hades, whencesoe'er, 
 From Athens or from Meroe, you fare : 
 Nor grieve to die when far from home ; you'll find 
 To Hades everywhere a favouring wind." 
 
 The next is by Lucillius : 
 
 " I mourn not those who lose their vital breath ; 
 But those who, living, live in fear of death." 
 
 This is by Palladas : 
 
 " Father of flatterers, Gold, of Pain and Care begot, 
 A fear it is to have thee, and a pain to have thee not." 
 
 This, again, is by Lucillius : 
 
 " If one grown old still longer life implores, 
 I wish his years prolonged for many scores." 
 
 This is by Theognis : 
 
 " Woe's me for joyful youth, and joyless eld ! 
 This coming, I behold ; that going, I've beheld." 
 
 The next is by Philo : 
 
 " Grey hairs are wisdom if you hold your tongue : 
 Speak and they are but hairs, as in the young." 
 
 This is by Lucian : 
 
 " The happy think a lifetime a short stage : 
 One night to the unhappy seems an age." 
 
 This, upon deliberation and rashness, is by the same : 
 " Slow-footed Counsel is most sure to gain 
 
 o " 
 
 Rashness still brings llepentance in her train."
 
 DIDACTIC. 115 
 
 Give quickly, if you give at all, is thus recommended 
 by an anonymous writer : 
 
 " Swift kindnesses are best : a long delay, 
 In kindness, takes the kindness all away." 
 
 This, too, is anonymous : 
 
 " Too much is always bad : old proverbs call 
 Even too much honey nothing else than gall." 
 
 This next, which is also anonymous, requires some 
 explanation, as it turns upon the letters of the Greek 
 alphabet : 
 
 " Six hours suffice for work : when these we give, 
 The next four letters order us to 'live.'" 
 
 It has been a common amusement for studious men to 
 expand this epigram by a more minute subdivision of 
 time. In Sir Edward Coke's Diary there is a Latin 
 triplet on the subject, of which Mr Amos, in his inter- 
 esting ' Gems of Latin Poetry,' tells us that he found 
 this version upon a fly-leaf of an old law-book : 
 
 " Six hours to sleep allot : to law be six addressed : 
 Pray four : feast two : the Muses claim the rest." 
 
 Sir William Jones tried to improve this by rather too 
 quaint a conceit, thus : 
 
 " Seven hours to law ; to soothing slumber seven : 
 Ten to the world allow ; and all to Heaven." 
 
 His couplet had been misquoted, and Mr Amos points 
 out an unmeaning dispute between Croker and Mac- 
 aulay on the basis of that false reading.* 
 
 * Arm, Gems, p. 120.
 
 llti THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 These modern compositions are all obviously founded 
 upon the Greek epigram above given, but of which 
 the essential part cannot be seen in a translation. 
 The turning-point of it lies here, that the letters of 
 the Greek alphabet, with the addition of three other 
 signs, are used as numerals ; and when you have ex- 
 pressed the six hours in that way, the next four letters 
 are these z, e, th, i, which, when put together, make 
 the imperative mood of the verb to live. To live, we 
 suspect, may have a good many different meanings. 
 " To live and love " is a phrase of Catullus ; but the 
 best view of the epigram is to suppose that " living " 
 here embraces all the employments and enjoyments of 
 life that will enable us better to labour when the 
 season of labour returns. We find it thus expanded 
 in a stray MS. found in a folio Anthology : 
 
 " Six hours are due to labour, and no more : 
 Count these in letters, and the following four 
 Tell man to ' live : ' to eat and drink and play, 
 And sleep and wake, and think, and watch and pray." 
 
 The following is an epigram by Macedonius, giving 
 a very liberal view of the duties of hospitality, a vir- 
 tue particularly necessary in certain states of society, 
 and not inappropriate in a pretty wide sense in some 
 remote parts even of our own country : 
 
 " Stranger and countryman to me 
 Welcome alike shall ever be. 
 To ask of any guest his name, 
 Or whose he is, or whence he came, 
 I hold can never be his part 
 Who owns a hospitable heart."
 
 DIDACTIC. 117 
 
 The following is a eulogium on the value of friend- 
 ship, anonymous : 
 
 " A good friend's a great treasure, Heliodorus, 
 As great as any Heaven can set before us : 
 At least to him to whom 'tis also given 
 To keep, when he has got, that gift of Heaven." 
 
 Here is an ingenious recommendation to secure the 
 friendship of an affectionate woman, by Antipater : 
 
 " Me, a dry plane-tree now, a clustering vine 
 Envelops : this fair foliage is not mine. 
 Yet once I nursed her fruit with many a bough, 
 As verdant and as fresh as she is now. 
 Do thou thus strive to gain a woman's love, 
 Who to thy dying day will grateful prove." 
 
 "We may conclude this section with a sententious 
 enumeration of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, which, 
 as it is rather like doggerel in the Greek, can scarcely 
 appear better in the translation. It is anonymous : 
 
 " I'll tell the names and sayings and the places of their 
 
 birth, 
 Of the Seven great ancient Sages, so renowned on Grecian 
 
 earth : 
 
 The Lindian Cleobulus said ' The mean was still the best : 
 The Spartan Chilo, ' Know thyself,' a -heav'u-born phrase 
 
 confessed : 
 
 Corinthian Periander taught, ' Our anger to command : ' 
 ' Too much of nothing,' Pittacus, from Mitylene's strand : 
 Athenian Solon this advised, ' Look to the end of life : ' 
 And Bias from Prieue showed, ' Bad men are the most 
 
 rife : ' 
 
 Milesian Thales urged that ' None should e'er a surety be :' 
 Few were their words, but, if you look, you'll much in 
 
 little see."
 
 CHAPTER VX 
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 
 
 THE next class of epigrams to be noticed consists of 
 the Literary and Artistic, which, often run into each 
 other, and may therefore be embraced in the same 
 section, although they admit of a certain degree of 
 separation. 
 
 LITERARY. 
 
 The epigrams upon poets may begin the list. It 
 has been supposed that these epigrams, which are very 
 numerous, had many of them at least originally 
 formed a continuous poem, exhibiting a gallery of 
 the successive poets thus celebrated. This may to a 
 certain extent have been the case, particularly as a 
 considerable number of these epigrams are by the 
 same author Antipater of Sidon. But that circum- 
 stance is not conclusive ; there are a groat many other 
 epigrams by other authors, and they descend to us cer- 
 tainly as detached compositions. 
 
 There come here, in the first place, two upon Or- 
 pheus. The following is by Antipater ; the translation 
 partly from the versions of Bland and Hay :
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 119 
 
 " No longer, Orpheus, will thy soothing song, 
 Oaks, rocks, and lawless monsters lead along : 
 No longer lull the stormy winds to sleep ; 
 The hail, the drifting snow, the raging deep. 
 Thou'rt gone ; the Muses weep around thy bier, 
 And most, Calliope, thy mother dear. 
 Why mourn our children lost, when from the grave 
 The gods themselves cannot their offspring save !" 
 
 The next is anonymous. The Thracian women, in 
 a fit of frenzy, had put Orpheus to death, but now 
 lamented him with all the tokens of repentance : 
 
 " Orphciis, now dead, Calliope's, and high CEagrus' son, 
 
 The fair-haired Thracian women wept, racing the deed thus 
 done : 
 
 Their arms they lanced with weapons keen, till the blood 
 freely flowed, 
 
 And o'er their locks, in sign of grief, were dust and ashes 
 strowed. 
 
 The Muses, too, with the bright god who bears the hea- 
 venly lyre, 
 
 Burst into tears and tuneful sighs a melancholy choir, 
 
 Mourning their much-loved minstrel much ; while rocks 
 and trees around 
 
 Added their wail J'or him whose harp had soothed them 
 with its sound." 
 
 Homer comes next, on whom there is here an 
 epigram by Antiphilus, translated by Mr Hay. It is 
 in the form of a dialogue between Antiphilus and the 
 Iliad and Odyssey : 
 
 Antiphihts. Who are ye, Books, and what do ye contain ? 
 
 Books. Daughters of Homer we, and we explain 
 The tale of Troy, Achilles 1 wrath, the might 
 Of Hector's struggle in the ten years' fight,
 
 120 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Ulysses' toils, the tears bis consort shed, 
 The wooers' struggles for her widowed bed. 
 
 Antiphilus. Great Works, go join the Muses' choir in 
 
 heaven, 
 For Time proclaims their number now eleven. 
 
 This is by Leonidas of Tarentum : 
 
 " The fiery sun, when wheeling up heaven's height, 
 Obscures the stars and the moon's holy light ; 
 So Homer, seen 'mid the poetic throng, 
 Dims by his splendour all the orbs of song." 
 
 Every one knows the verses 
 
 " Seven Grecian cities vied for Homer dead, 
 Through which the living Homer begged his bread ; " 
 
 a tradition which doubtless suggested to Horace 
 Smith the supposition, that his Egyptian mummy 
 might in his day " have dropped a halfpenny in 
 Homer's hat." The seven cities have been differently 
 enumerated in different epigrams, but this couplet 
 will give one edition of them : 
 
 " Seven cities vied for Homer's birth, with emulation pious, 
 Salamis, Samos, Colophon, Rhodes, Argos, Athens, Chios." 
 
 Antipater will have it that this uncertainty is easily 
 explained and easily solved. The translation is Meri- 
 vale's : 
 
 " From Colophon some deem thee sprung ; 
 From Smyrna some, and some from Chios ; 
 These noble Salamis have sung, 
 While those proclaim thee born in los ; 
 And others cry up Thessaly, 
 The mother of the Lapithae.
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 121 
 
 Thus each to Homer has assigned 
 
 The birthplace just which suits his mind ; 
 
 But if I read the volume right, 
 
 By Phoebus to his followers given, 
 
 I'd say they're all mistaken quite : 
 
 His real country must be Heaven ; 
 
 While for his mother She can be 
 
 No other than Calliope." 
 
 There are many more epigrams upon Homer, but we 
 must make a selection. 
 
 This is by Philippus the Anthologist. It is some- 
 what commonplace : 
 
 "Sooner shall heaven put out the stars the night 
 Be gilded by the sun's resplendent light ; 
 The sea to men a pleasant beverage yield, 
 Or the dead rise to range Life's busy h'eld, 
 Than blank forgetfulness shroud Homer's name, 
 And of those ancient pages quench the fame." 
 
 Another, by Alcseus of Messene, is founded on the 
 tradition that Homer died on the island of los, and 
 that his death was occasioned or hastened by his ina- 
 bility to solve a foolish riddle propounded to him by 
 some fisher lads, against which catastrophe, it is said, 
 he had been warned by an oracle. The story of the 
 riddle is beneath contempt, though riddles, from tha 
 time of the Sphinx, were serious things, as may also 
 appear from the Scripture story of Samson. The 
 translation is by Mr Hay, a little altered : 
 
 " Sorely afflicted was the hero's bard, 
 AYlirn los' sons devised that riddle hard : 
 Upon their Homer's corse the Nereids pour 
 Nectar, when stretched upon its cliffy shore ;
 
 122 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 For he had honoured Thetis and her son, } 
 AVith other heroes who had glory won, > 
 
 And told the deeds by wise Ulysses done. ) 
 los, though small, most blest of Isles ! since he, 
 The Muses and the Graces' star, now sleeps in thee ! " 
 
 This that follows is by Alpheus of Mitylene : 
 
 " Still of Andromache the wail we hear, 
 
 Still see Troy's ramparts tottering to the ground ; 
 The din, where Ajax fights, still strikes the ear, 
 
 And steeds drag Hector's corse the walls around, 
 Through Homer's Muse, whom not one laud alone, 
 But climes of either world proclaim their own." 
 
 Several of the other epigrams upon Homer have a 
 connection probably with those feelings which ulti- 
 mately came to pay him divine honours, and which 
 culminated in that wonderful work of art, the Apo- 
 theosis of Homer, now preserved among the Townley 
 Sculptures in the British Museum.* Here is an epi- 
 gram upon a statue of Homer erected at Argos the 
 author anonymous : 
 
 " This is the god-like Homer ; he who, fraught 
 AVith wisest words, to Greece high glory brought : 
 And most to Argives, who the god-built Troy 
 Did for fair Helen's crime by force destroy. 
 Grateful to him their city here has placed 
 His image, and with heavenly honours graced." 
 
 The next epigram, which is anonymous, seems to 
 point directly to a kind of apotheosis : 
 
 "If Homer is a god, let worship due be given ; 
 If he is not a god, then think him now in heaven." 
 
 * See ' Handbook to the Antiquities of the British Museum, 1 
 in which a woodcut of this beautiful bus- relief is given.
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 123 
 
 What follows belongs to that class of epigrams of 
 which there are many in the Anthology, with the title, 
 " What words some one would have said as to some 
 particular person or occasion." It is put into the 
 mouth of Apollo : 
 
 " I sang those songs that gained so much renown : 
 I Phoebus ; Homer merely wrote them down." 
 
 Our next epigram is rather an extravagant piece of 
 jocularity : 
 
 " Homer so sang of Troy destroj'ed by fire, 
 That envy seized the towns that stood entire." 
 
 This is upon Hesiod, by Asclepiades or Arehias ; the 
 translation by Gold win Smith : 
 
 " The Muses, Hesiod, on the mountain steep, 
 Themselves at noon thy flocks beheld thee keep ; 
 The bright-leaved bay they plucked, and all the Nine 
 Placed in thy hand at once the branch divine. 
 Then their dear Helicon's inspiring wave, 
 Fi'Diu where the wing'd steed smote the ground, they gave, 
 Which deeply quaffed, thy verse the lineage told 
 Of gods, and husbandry, and heroes old." 
 
 The next poet to be noticed is Archilochus, a writer 
 of wonderful reputation among the ancients, but of 
 whom we have only a few fragments, full of a sublime 
 energy enough to convince us of the character and 
 spirit of what we have lost. He was born of a noble 
 family at Paros, whence he emigrated in his youth to 
 Thasos, at the time when a colony of Parians was 
 founded in that place. " He was," says Professor 
 Wilson, " among the lirst, and by far the greatest, of
 
 124 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 soldier-poets ;" " yet on the field of battle he left be- 
 hind his shield," an incident which he sought to gloss 
 over by writing the following epigram, of which we 
 give Merivale's translation : 
 
 " The foeman glories o'er my shield 
 I left it on the battle-field : 
 I threw it down beside the wood, 
 Unscathed by scars, unstained with blood. 
 And let him glory : since from death 
 Escaped, I keep my forfeit breath, 
 I soon may tind at little cost 
 As good a shield as that I've lost." 
 
 He was a fearful satirist, and there is a strange story 
 of his having driven to suicide the daughters of Ly- 
 cambes by a lampoon, in revenge for some slight or 
 injury received from one of them, his betrothed or his 
 wife, Neobule. 
 
 Epigrams upon him are to be found, sometimes 
 laudatory and sometimes the reverse. We begin with 
 one in his praise by Leonidas or Theocritus. The 
 translation is founded on a very poor one by Fawkes, 
 which it is not easy to raise above mediocrity : 
 
 " Stand, and Archilochus, the bard, behold ! 
 Him, by his keen iambics known of old : 
 Whose glory has by myriad pathways run 
 To realms of night and to the rising sun. 
 The Muses much their zealous votary loved ; 
 And Phoebus, too, on him his favour proved : 
 Where care and skill were matched with equal fire, 
 Fit strains to frame and sing them to his lyre." 
 
 The next will show the reverse of the medal:
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 125 
 
 " Archilochus's seaside tomb you see, 
 Who first with viperous gall stained poesie, 
 Wounding sweet Helicon Lycambes knew 
 Its fury well, when 'twas his fate to view 
 Three strangled daughters whom this slanderer slew. 
 Pass softly, stranger, lest it be your doom 
 To wake the wasps that settle on his tomb." 
 
 There are more of the same kind, but the subject is 
 not a pleasant one. One view, however, in an epigram 
 of a lighter kind, suggests that if he had not taken to 
 satire, lie might have rivalled the greatest of poets : 
 
 " Here lies Archilochus, whom the Muse impelled 
 To fierce iambics, that with venom swelled : 
 Lest her dear Homer she should see excelled." 
 
 The next of the poets in order seems to be Sappho, 
 on whom there are several epigrams. 
 This is by Antipater : 
 
 " Sappho my name, in song o'er women held 
 As far supreme, as Homer men excelled." 
 
 The next is by Pinytus : 
 
 " This tomb reveals where Sappho's ashes He, 
 But her sweet words of wisdom ne'er will die." 
 
 This, again, is by Antipater, translated by Welles- 
 ley: 
 
 " Amazement seized Mnemosyne 
 At Sappho's honey'd song : 
 ' What, does a tenth Muse, tlu>n,' cried she, 
 ' To mortal men belong ! ' " 
 
 Here is another, anonymous:
 
 126 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " Come, Lesbian maids, to blue-eyed Juno's grove, 
 With steps that lightly o'er the entrance move. 
 There to the goddess form a graceful dance, 
 While Sappho as your leader shall advance, 
 Bearing her golden lyre. With her rejoice ! 
 Her song will seem Calliope's own voice." 
 
 This is ascribed to Plato : 
 
 " Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine , 
 A tenth is Lesbian Sappho, maid divine." 
 
 Coupled with Sappho's name, and next hers in 
 order, we sometimes meet with that of Erinna, but 
 there is not sufficient ground for assigning to that 
 poetess so early a date. She was obviously, however, 
 a favourite with the epigrammatists, and seems to 
 deserve her reputation, though we have not enough of 
 her poetry preserved to enable us fully to appreciate 
 her. What we begin with is anonymous : 
 
 " This is Erinna's honeycomb, though small 
 Tis of the Muses' sweets commingled all; 
 Three hundred lines that match with Homer's lays : 
 Such power this maid of nineteen years displays. 
 Her mother's frown, the distaff and the loom 
 Ordained, but for the Muses left some room. 
 Sappho in lyrics o'er Erinna shone, 
 But was in epic verse as much by her outdone." 
 
 Here is another by Antipater, translated by Meri- 
 vale ; a little altered : 
 
 " Few were thy words, Erinna, short thy lay, 
 
 But thy short lay the Muse herself had given ; 
 Thus never shall thy memory decay, 
 
 Nor night obscure thy fame, which lives in heav'n.
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. ll'7 
 
 While we, the unnumbered banls of after-times, 
 Sink in the melancholy grave unseen ; 
 
 Unhonoured reach Avernus' laltled climes, 
 And leave no record that we once have been. 
 
 Sweet are the graceful swan's melodious lays, 
 Though but an instant heard, and then they die ; 
 
 But the long chattering of discordant jays, 
 The winds of April scatter through the sky." 
 
 Here is a catalogue of eight of the most distin- 
 guished lyric poets, to which the addition of Snpplm 
 would make a ninth ; but her sex, it is said, seems 
 rather to recommend that she should be kept to make 
 a tenth Muse. It is anonymous : 
 
 " Pindar from Thebes gave forth a mighty shout : 
 Simonides melodious lays breathed out : 
 Stesichorus and Ibycus shone bright : 
 Airman, liucrliylidi-s, g;ive soft delight : 
 Persuasion dwelt on gay Anacreon's tongue : 
 Alcams to ^Eolia nobly sung. 
 Sappho would make a ninth : but fitter she, 
 Among the Muses, a tenth Muse to be." 
 
 We may add here a somewhat similar enumeration, 
 by another uncertain author, translated by Merivalc. 
 Here Sappho's name is included " to make up nine:" 
 
 " Q sacred voice of the Pierian choir, 
 Immortal Pindar ! enchanting air 
 Of sweet Bacchylides ! rapturous lyre, 
 Majestic graces, of the Lesbian fair ! 
 
 Muse of Anacreon, the. gay, the young ! 
 Stesichorus, thy full Homeric stream ! 
 Soft elegies by Coca's poet sung ! 
 Persuasive Ibycus, thy glowing theme !
 
 128 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Sword of Alcseus, that, with tyrant's gore 
 Gloriously painted, lift'st thy point so high ! 
 Ye tuneful nightingales that still deplore 
 Your Alcman, prince of amorous poesy ! 
 Oh yet impart some breath of heavenly fire 
 To him who venerates the Grecian lyre !" 
 
 A catalogue of female poets may here be given as a 
 counterpart : it is by Antipater of Thessalonica : 
 
 " These god-tongued women were with song supplied 
 From Helicon to steep Pieria's side : 
 Prexilla, Myro, Anyte's grand voice 
 The female Homer ; Sappho, pride and choice 
 Of Lesbian dames, whose locks have earned a name, 
 Erinna, Telesilla known to fame. 
 And thou, Corinna, whose bright numbers yield 
 A vivid image of Athene's shield. 
 Soft-sounding Nossis, Myrtis of, sweet song, 
 Work-women all whose books will last full long. 
 Nine Muses owe to Uranus their birth, 
 And nine an endless joy for man to Earth." 
 
 Pindar is well entitled to one epigram all to him- 
 self, and it is here. It is by Antipater : 
 
 " As the war- trumpet drowns the fawn-bone flute, 
 So, when your shell is heard, all else is mute. 
 Not vainly did the swarm of brown bees drip 
 Their wax-bound honey on your infant lip : 
 Witness the horned god, aside who flings ^ 
 His pastoral reeds, and your high lyrics sings." 
 
 / 
 
 The dramatic poets come next in order. 
 
 ON AESCHYLUS. 
 
 By Dioscorides. 
 
 "Thespis' invention, and the sylvan plays, 
 And Bacchic games that gained the rustic's praise,
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 129 
 
 s raised aloft, and nobler made ; 
 Not bringing carved and curious words to aid, 
 But like a torrent rushing down with force, 
 And stirring all things in its mighty course, 
 lie changed the stage's forms : O voice sublime, 
 Fit for a demigod of ancient time." 
 
 ON THE SAME. 
 
 By Diodorus. 
 " This tombstone tells, ' Here zEschylus is laid :' 
 
 By Gela's streams, from his own land afar : 
 Illustrious bard ! what envious fate has made 
 Athenians ever with good men at war !" 
 
 ON THE TOMB OF SOPHOCLES. 
 By Simmias of Thebes : translation from the ' Spectator. 
 
 " Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade 
 Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid. 
 Sweet ivy, lend thine aid, and intertwine 
 With blushing roses and the clustering vine. 
 Thus shall thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung, 
 Prove grateful emblems of the lays lu sung." 
 
 These lines have been set to music iu the form of a 
 graceful catch or canon. 
 
 ON EURIPIDES. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 " Thou met'st, Euripides, a mournful fate ! 
 When on thee wolf-dogs did their hunger sate ! 
 The scene's sweet nightingale, the Athenians' pride ! 
 Whose songs show grace with wisdom well allied, 
 At Pella thou hast found a tomb, that he 
 Who was the Muses' priest, should near the Muses be." 
 
 Euripides was said to have met his fate in a mys- 
 A. c. vol. xx. I
 
 130 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY 
 
 terious manner, being devoured at night by dogs, sup- 
 posed to have been set on him by an enemy or rival. 
 
 AN INSCRIPTION FOR HIS CENOTAPH NEAR ATHENS. 
 
 u This tombstone is no monument of thee, 
 But thou of it, Euripides, shall be : 
 Thy glory clothes it, and men come to see." 
 
 ON ARISTOPHANES. 
 By Plato : translation by Merivale. 
 
 " The Graces, seeking for a shrine, 
 
 Whose glories ne'er should cease, 
 Found, as they strayed, the soul divine 
 Of Aristophanes." 
 
 This is good ; but it has, we think, at least one 
 fault, in adding the epithet " divine." The original 
 has it not : it contents itself with saying that the 
 Graces found what they did find, and which it is in- 
 ferred was just what they wanted. The following 
 avoids that superfluity. 
 
 " The Graces sought some holy ground, 
 
 Whose site should ever please ; 
 And in their search the soul they found 
 Of Aristophanes." 
 
 The modest charm of " not too much " is one of the 
 lessons which the best Greek compositions may teach 
 us. The literal translation of the Greek is this : 
 
 " The Graces, seeking to possess some sacred enclosure 
 which should never fail, found the soul of Aristo- 
 phanes." 
 
 As Plato was a warm admirer of Aristophanes, it is
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 131 
 
 not improbable that he was the author of the beauti- 
 ful and felicitous epigram referred to. 
 
 THE BOOKS OF ARISTOPHANES. 
 By Antipater of Thessalonica, translated by Dr Wellesley. 
 
 " The plays of Aristophanes ! around that work divine 
 The Achaniian ivy's clust'ring wreaths in verdant glory 
 
 twine. 
 What inspiration in the page ! 'tis Bacchus' self! What 
 
 sounds 
 
 Of graceful poesy, which yet with dreaded wit abounds. 
 Genius of Comedy ! how just ! how true to all that's 
 
 Greek ! 
 Whate'er in satire or in jest thy personages speak." 
 
 ON MENANDEK. 
 Anonymous. 
 
 " The bees themselves on thy lips honey dropped, 
 Thence, where the Muses' flowers their zeal had cropped ; 
 The Graces, too, Menander, made thee know 
 Of bright dramatic wit a happy How. 
 Thou'lt ever live ; to Athens will be given 
 A fame through thee to touch the clouds of heaven." 
 
 This survey of the poets may not unfitly be con- 
 cluded by the epitaph on Leonidas of Tarentum, 
 whether it be written by himself or by some one in 
 his name. It discloses, apparently, a true account of 
 the life of wandering and hardship that he had led. 
 The translation is by Merivale : 
 
 " Far from Tarentum's native soil I lie, 
 Far from the dear land of my infancy. 
 Tis dread ful to resign thjfc. mortal breath, 
 But in a stranger clinic 'tis worse than death!
 
 132 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Call it not life to pass a fevered age. 
 
 In ceaseless wanderings o'er the world's wide stage. 
 
 But me the Muse has ever loved, and giv'n 
 
 Sweet joys to counterpoise the curse of heav'n ; 
 
 Nor lets my memory decay, but long 
 
 To distant times preserves my deathless song." 
 
 In what goes before, the poets exclusively have been 
 dealt with ; but a few epigrams are to be found upon 
 historians and philosophers. The jeu $ esprit upon 
 Herodotus which follows, is not a sufficient tribute to 
 the merits of that delightful historian. It is by Leoni- 
 das of Alexandria, the translation by Mr de Teissier : 
 
 " The Muses to Herodotus one day 
 Came, nine of them, and dined ; 
 And in return, their host to pay, 
 Left each a book behind." 
 
 It is well known that the history of Herodotus, in 
 nine books, had the name of a Muse affixed to each. 
 
 ON A STATUE OF PLUTARCH. 
 By Agathias : the translation by Dryden. 
 " Cheronean Plutarch, to thy deathless praise 
 Does martial Borne this grateful statue raise : 
 Because both Greece and ehe thy fame have share' 1 
 (Their heroes written, and their lives com] tared) ; 
 But thou thyself couldst never write thy own ; 
 Their lives have parallels, but thine has none." 
 
 To THE IMAGE OP AN EAGLE NEAR PLATO'S TOMB. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 " Eagle, why stand' st thou on that tomb, and why 
 Look'st thou aloft to yonder starry sky ?" 
 " In me see Plato's soul, that heav'mvard flies; 
 Hia earth-born corpse in Attic earth now lies."'
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 133 
 
 It was a belief that the soul of a great and good 
 man was carried to heaven by an eagle. 
 
 AN EPITAPH ON PLATO, BY HIS NAME op ARISTOCLES. 
 
 " Excelling all in modesty and worth, 
 Godlike Aristocles here lies in earth ; 
 If e'er 'twas given to reach high wisdom's praise, 
 'Twas given to him, nor did he envy raise." 
 
 The name of Plato was given to the philosopher 
 from the great breadth either of his figure, or of his 
 brow, or of his eloquence it is not certain which. 
 
 ON PLATO AND ESCULAPIUS. 
 
 " Plato and Esculapius both to Phcobus owed their birth, 
 Sent by the god of healing down, to succour men on 
 
 earth. 
 
 To cure the body's maladies was one of these designed ; 
 The other had the nobler charge of medicine for the 
 
 mind." 
 
 This epigram alludes to the fiction that Plato, like 
 Esculapius, was the son of Apollo, and not of a mortal 
 father. 
 
 This is a shorter form of the same thought : 
 
 " Asclepias once, and Plato, too, Phoebus to mortals gave, 
 That one the body, one the soul, from maladies might 
 save." 
 
 ON EPICTETUS. 
 
 By Leouidus. 
 
 " I, Epictetus, was a slave, who now lie buried here, 
 A cripple, and as Irus poor, and to the immortals dear,"
 
 134 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 ON THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 " Ye Stoic sages, from your sacred loaves 
 The studious mind this highest truth receives, 
 That Virtue is the soul's ONE good, and she 
 Of men and nations the sole hope can be. 
 When fleshly pleasures others make their aim, 
 One Muse alone will her assent proclaim." 
 
 ON DIOGENES. 
 By Aiitiphilus. 
 
 " E'en brass grows old with time ; but thy renown, 
 Diogenes, no age can e'er live down. 
 Thou only didst a self-sufficing way 
 And easy-going life to men display." 
 
 ON THE STUDY OF ASTRONOMY. 
 By Ptolemy : translation by P. Smyth. 
 
 " Though but the being of a day, 
 When I yon planet's course survey 
 
 This earth I then despise : 
 Near Jove's eternal throne I stand, 
 And quaff from an immortal hand 
 
 The nectar of the skies." 
 
 ON HYPATIA, THE FEMALE ASTRONOMER. 
 Anonymous. 
 
 " When I behold thee when I hear thy lore, 
 Thy maiden presence humbly I adore. 
 I see in thee the Virgin of the sky, 
 The constellation shining there on high. 
 The heavens are still thy business and thy home, 
 To which thy lessons tend, from which they coine ; 
 Noble Hypatia ! of high speech the flower, 
 The lustrous star of wise instruction's power."
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 135 
 
 What follows may connect these epigrams upon 
 literature and philosophy with those that are immedi- 
 ately to come, as the subject of it will show. 
 
 ON A STATUE or ARISTOTLE. 
 Anonymous. 
 
 u Here, from one mould, a statue we erect 
 To Aristotle and to Intellect." 
 
 ARTISTIC. 
 
 "We proceed now to those epigrams that illustrate 
 the history and state of Art among the Greeks. These 
 form a large proportion of the Anthology, and are 
 more particularly to be found in the collection of 
 Planudes. 
 
 The enormous destruction which in process of time 
 has overtaken the works of ancient art, especially of 
 ancient paintings, may prevent us from recognising 
 in many epigrams allusions to statues and pictures 
 which have now perished, where the epigrammatist 
 may not have mentioned the artist's name, or stated 
 explicitly the reference intended. Yet the industry 
 of critics has latterly thrown a strong light on those 
 subjects ; and the discovery from time to time of 
 ancient copies of lost works of art, and of mirnatuve 
 editions of them in gems or engraved stones, has 
 facilitated greatly the proper understanding of this 
 subject. We may notice one or two instances where 
 an obscure hint so given in an epigram has been 
 explained by an extant gem, and thus an additional
 
 136 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 interest conferred on "both. Thus there is an anony- 
 mous epigram in Planudes which may be thus trans- 
 lated : 
 
 " The winged boy t/ie winged thunder breaks : 
 Thus Love o'er other fires precedence takes." 
 
 Many passages in ancient writers mention the exist- 
 ence of works of art representing Cupid holding a 
 thunderbolt, and we read in Plutarch in particular 
 that such a device was exhibited on Alcibiades' 
 shield. But there is preserved an antique gem, of 
 which an engraving is to be found in Spence's ' Poly- 
 metis,' Plate vii. fig. 3, where a winged Cupid is 
 shown in the act of breaking a thunderbolt across 
 his knee ; and it seems impossible to doubt that the 
 writer of the epigram had seen or known of a work of 
 art containing such a representation. Another epi- 
 gram in Planudes runs thus also anonymous : 
 
 " You there who blow that brand, your lamp to light, 
 Light it at me : my soul is blazing quite." 
 
 This epigram, and another longer, to the same effect, 
 seem to point to a sculptured Cupid blowing a torch 
 into a blaze, the same perhaps that Pliny mentions 
 as a statue by Lycus, of a boy blowing into a flame a 
 decaying fire. 
 
 The interest attached to these resemblances becomes, 
 of course, all the greater when the question is as to 
 works of art of a nobler kind. Indeed, the considera- 
 tion of the connection between poetry and art, and of 
 the mutual aid they have aiforded each other, as well
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 137 
 
 as the distinctions that separate them, lead to in- 
 quiries of greater importance and of a very attractive 
 kind. Phidias is said to have declared that he derived 
 his idea of the Olympian Jove from a few lines 
 in Homer ; while it is possible that Virgil drew, 
 though with important modifications, his description 
 of Laocoon and his sons from some work of art that 
 lie had seen, and which thus would have been the 
 original of the group that we now possess. If, how- 
 ever, the artists copied from Virgil as the true source, 
 this view is also full of interest, both as to the points 
 of resemblance and those of diversity >iu the two re- 
 presentations. 
 
 In treating of the epigrams as illustrative of art, it 
 is difficult to say in what order they should be dealt 
 with. The periods at which the different epigram- 
 matists lived is often so uncertain as to prevent the 
 chronology of the authorship being taken as a guide;. 
 The best method seems to be to deal with the subjects 
 according to their classes, and consequently to begin 
 with the most dignified, those that relate to the gods. 
 
 Among the superlative achievements of ancient art 
 must be reckoned the colossal statues of Minerva and 
 Jupiter by Phidias, one of which stood in the Parthe- 
 non at Athens, and the other in the Temple of Jupiter 
 at Olympia. In these works the Greek ideal of di- 
 vinity was at last carried to its perfection. At first it 
 would appear that the Greeks were satisfied with put- 
 ting up images which partook more of the nature of 
 symbols of the deity represented, than attempts at any 
 supposed likeness ; but by degrees it came to be estab-
 
 138 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 lished that the higher circle of gods should be 
 exhibited as human forms, though transcendently 
 more powerful and more beautiful than any human 
 reality. The Olympian Jupiter of Phidias, which 
 was his last work, attained the summit of this ex- 
 cellence. The material was that mixture of gold and 
 ivory which got the name of Chryselephantine, and 
 in which Phidias delighted to work. And the statue 
 professed, as the artist himself declared, to be founded 
 on the sublime passage in Homer, which describes 
 the approving nod of the divinity, thus imposingly 
 but not very accurately translated by Pope : 
 
 " He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows : 
 Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, 
 The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god." 
 
 The work appears to have occupied Phidias, who was 
 a slow and elaborate worker, for a period of irom four 
 to five years exclusively devoted to the task. A full 
 and artistic account of the elaboration bestowed by 
 him on his Minerva and Jupiter will be found in an 
 article by Mr Story upon " Phidias and the Elgin 
 Marbles" in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for December 
 1873. 
 
 Great as the reputation of Phidias must have been, 
 there are not many allusions to him in the Antholo- 
 gies. The principal of these, perhaps the only direct 
 one, has reference apparently to the Olympian Jupiter, 
 and is in these terms : 
 
 " Either Jove came to earth to show his form to thee, 
 Phidias, or thou to heaven hast gone the god to see."
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 139 
 
 The rarity of such allusion may be more intelligible 
 if we hold with high authorities, including Mr Story, 
 that Phidias did not himself work in marble, so as to 
 make his works more widely diffused. 
 
 Here is a short epigram by Julian upon an armed 
 statue of Minerva in Athens. The allusion is to the 
 contention said to have existed between her and Nep- 
 tune for the sovereignty of Athens, in which Minerva 
 was the conqueror. The epigrammatist remonstrates 
 with the goddess for keeping on her armour after she 
 had won the victory : 
 
 " Why, Pallas, armed in Athens do you stand ? 
 Neptune has yielded ; spare the Athenian's land." 
 
 There seem to have been two statues one of Minerva 
 and one of Bacchus placed near each other in some 
 temple or public place, to which an epigrammatist ad- 
 dresses an inquiry of surprise as to the possible con- 
 nection that thus placed them in proximity : 
 
 " Say, Bacchus, why thus placed ? what can there be 
 
 In common held by Pallas and by thee ? 
 
 Her pleasure is in darts and battles : thine 
 
 In joyous feasts and draughts of rosy wine." 
 
 " Stranger, not rashly of the gods thus speak : 
 
 Our mutual likeness is not far to seek. 
 
 I, too, in battles glory Indians know 
 
 In me, to ocean's edge, a conquering foe. 
 
 Mankind we both have bless'd ; the olive she 
 
 Has given, the vine's sweet clusters come from me. 
 
 Nor she, nor I, e'er caused a mother's pains: 
 
 I from Jove's thigh produced, she from his brains." 
 
 We have been led on somehow to pass over Juno, who
 
 140 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY 
 
 ought to have come after her husband. The most 
 celebrated statue of her was that by Polycleitus at 
 Argos, her favourite city, which was considered little 
 if at all inferior to the works of Phidias. But to any 
 image of Juno there is little reference in the Antho- 
 logy. The most conspicuous notice is this, which ap- 
 parently refers to the statue at Argos : 
 
 " The Argive Polycleitus, who alone 
 Had sight of Juno, and that sight has shown, 
 What of her beauty he could give, has given : 
 Her unseen charms are kept for Jove in heaven. 
 
 As Jupiter was the great impersonation of majesty and 
 power, so Juno was held to embody all the dignity 
 of matronly excellence, being viewed in particular 
 as the patroness of marriage, that institution on which 
 civilised society is founded and family affection in- 
 grafted. Perhaps the awe with which both Jupiter 
 and Juno were regarded, and which was doubtless in- 
 creased by the grandeur and beauty of their most cele- 
 brated statues, made of the most precious materials 
 and of colossal magnitude, may have had some effect 
 in keeping at least the lighter epigrammatists from 
 trespassing on this ground. To some extent, also, the 
 same feeling may have operated to preserve Minerva 
 from being too familiarly dealt with ; though it will 
 afterwards be seen that some of the poets did not 
 scruple to introduce, with considerable levity, both 
 Juno and Minerva in connection with their contest 
 with Venus for the prize of beauty. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that the statues or likenesses
 
 LITERARY AXD ARTISTIC. 141 
 
 of Juno and Minerva were always presented in a draped 
 form, though it is possible that the " white anus " 
 of Juno, of which Homer speaks, may have sometimes 
 been represented by sculptors. It seems not unlikely 
 that until the time of Praxiteles the use of drapery 
 was general with all or most of the goddesses. It is 
 not easy otherwise to explain the point of the epigrams 
 on the Cnidian Venus of that artist, which was ex- 
 hibited undraped. 
 
 It is said that Praxiteles executed two statues of 
 Venus, one ordered by the Coans, entirely draped ; 
 another undraped, purchased by the Cnidians, and 
 placed in a temple to the goddess as the bringer of 
 prosperous navigation, in a position open to view from 
 the shore and sea on all sides, in order probably that 
 the sight of her image might give courage to the pass- 
 ing navigator, and might calm, or be thought to calm, 
 the troubled deep within its range. It is to this Cni- 
 dian statue of Parian marble that the well-known epi- 
 gram alludes which is ascribed to Plato 
 
 " The Paphian Queen to Cnidos made repair 
 Across the tide, to see her image there : 
 Then looking up and round the prospect wide, 
 ' Where did Praxiteles see me thus V she cried." 
 
 This epigram has been expanded as well as abridged 
 by other hands, but it is not worth while to give all 
 these varieties, which turn a good deal upon mere con- 
 ceits ; as, for instance, that the chisel of the sculptor, 
 be.ing of steel, did the bidding of Mars by giving the 
 marble all the beauty it could. We may give, how
 
 142 THE GREEK ANTHOLOUY. 
 
 ever, an epigram of a lighter kind, borrowed from the 
 first ; and a third, of which the translation is partly 
 borrowed from Merivale. The first runs thus : 
 
 " Said Venus when Venus in Cnidos she viewed : 
 Fie ! where did Praxiteles see me thus nude ?" 
 
 Venus speaks : 
 
 " I'm certain, save Paris, Adonis, Anchises, 
 
 No mortal e'er saw me when stripped of my clo'es : 
 And if this be the case, then the question arises : 
 Pray, how did Praxiteles see what he shows?" 
 
 Upon the same statue the following epigram also 
 exists, by Evenus : 
 
 " That Cnidian work when they beheld, 
 And saw how much its form excelled, 
 Pallas and Juno both exclaimed, 
 ' The Phrygian we unjustly blamed.'" 
 
 But another epigrammatist, anonymous, suggests with 
 regard to the two statues of Pallas and Venus, at 
 Athens and in Cnidos, that the spectator of each would 
 for the time give the preference to that which was be- 
 fore his eyes. "We give here Dr Wellesley's translation 
 of the epigram referred to : 
 
 "When foam-sprung Venus' charms divine you view, 
 You'll own the Phrygian herdsman's verdict true; 
 But when the Athenian Pallas you sur'ey, 
 ' Oh, what a clown to pass her by !' ycu'll say." 
 
 There is a discussion in some of the old Greek authors 
 as to the change of taste by which the Graces came 
 ultimately to be represented in an undraped form,
 
 LITERARY AXD ARTISTIC. 143 
 
 whereas the older artists all exhibited them as more or 
 less clothed. Perhaps the explanation is that when 
 Praxiteles, whose genius was certainly less exalted, 
 and perhaps less unsensual, than that of his great pre- 
 decessors, ventured to represent Venus herself as un- 
 clothed, the Graces, who were her handmaids, might 
 be allowed to follow her example. That in older works 
 of art they were usually draped is certain from several 
 authorities, and is illustrated by an old epigram, said 
 to be on a bath at Smyrna, of uncertain authorship, 
 though attributed by some to Leontius. Wo give Dr 
 Wellesley's translation : 
 
 " While the Graces were taking a bath here one day, 
 Little Love with their god (less- ship's clothes made away 
 Then took to his heels, and here left them all bare, 
 Ashamed out of doors to be seen as they were." 
 
 In rivalry with the Cnulian Venus of Praxiteles 
 may be ranked the equally celebrated Venus Anadyo- 
 mene of Apellcs. There are several epigrams on this 
 subject, but of these two are conspicuous, one by Le- 
 onidas of Tarentum, and one by Antipater of Sidon. 
 This is by Leonidas : 
 
 " As Venus from her mother's bosom rose 
 (Her beauty with the murmuring sea-foam glows), 
 Apelles caught and fixed each heavenly charm ; 
 No picture, but the life, sincere and warm. 
 See how those finger-tips her tresses wring ! 
 See how those eyes a calm-like radiance fling ! 
 That quince-formed breast reveals her in her prime, 
 Of love and soft desire the happy time. 
 Athene and Jove's consort both avow 
 '0 Jove ! we own that we are vanquished now.'"
 
 144 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 This is by Anti pater, borrowed, as he often does, 
 from Leonidas. It chiefly deserves notice from the 
 epithet Anadyomene ("emerging") being introduced: 
 
 " Venus, emerging from her parent sea, 
 
 A pelles' graphic skill does here portray : 
 She wrings her hair, while round the bright drops flee, 
 
 And presses from her locks the foamy spray. 
 Pallas and Juno now their claims give o'er, 
 And say, ' In beauty we contend no more.' " 
 
 The reputed familiarity of Venus and Mars leads 
 the epigrammatists sometimes to suppose her ac- 
 coutred in his armour. The common books of gems 
 show examples of this fancy ; and from these or 
 larger works of art on the subject the poets probably 
 took the hint. This epigram is by Leonidas of Alex- 
 andria, the translation partly from Ogle (p. 12) : 
 
 " These arms of Mars, why, Venus, do you wear ? 
 Why the unwieldy weight for nothing bear ? 
 The god himself yields to your naked charms ; 
 To conquer men, what need of other amis I " 
 
 Conceits are to be found in the epigrams as to the 
 power of Venus, if she were armed, to conquer still 
 more easily those with whom she had contended when 
 without armour ; but Prior has well urged, what other 
 poets had suggested, that the power of Venus lies truly 
 in her not being armed. 
 
 Cupid has had almost enough of space bestowed 
 upon him in a previous chapter, but we may give one 
 or two more epigrams relating to him. 
 
 Several gems represent Cupid, or a plurality of
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 145 
 
 Cupids, making free with the armour or weapons of 
 their betters. Several of these urchins are in one 
 engraved stone seen combining to carry Hercules's 
 club. Such images may have suggested the epigrams 
 on the Loves appropriating the "attributes" of the 
 gods in Olympus. This is a specimen ; it is by 
 Secundus : 
 
 " See these all-plundering Loves! With boyish glee 
 On their stout backs they don heaven's panoply : 
 Bacchus' own drums and tliyrse : Jove's thunderous fire : 
 The shield of Ares, and his dread attire: 
 Apollo's darts, Poseidon's three-toothed spear, 
 And the huge club Alcides used to rear. 
 What can men do, when Cupid conquers heaven, 
 And the gods' armour is to Venus given ?" 
 
 Here is an epigram by Marcus Argentarius, obvi- 
 ously suggested by some engraving : 
 
 " Love, the inevitable, here appears, 
 
 Graved on a seal, reining the lion's might: 
 One hand the whip, and one the bridle bears, 
 
 To iii-ge and guide : here grace and force unite. 
 I fear the murderer : he who could subdue 
 This savage beast, must rule tame mortals too." 
 
 It is said that such a gem was at one time in the 
 Orleans collection. In Spence's 'Polymetis ' (Plate vii.) 
 there is a representation of a Cupid riding on a lion 
 and playing on the harp. 
 
 On Apollo there are not many direct epigrams, 
 though he is celebrated in hymns and songs, which 
 lie beyond our province. One epigram deserves to be 
 inserted, as it refers to a celebrated bronze figure of 
 
 A. c. vol. xx. K
 
 146 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 him by Onatas. The epigram is a little obscure, and 
 begins with a rather singular appellation applied to 
 the god as an "ox-boy;" but the idea of ox-like dimen- 
 sions seems to have presented to the Greek mind 
 mainly the conception of full size, without any tinge 
 of coarseness as, for example, in the case of the 
 "ox-eyed" Juno. The epigram is by Antipater of 
 Thessalonica : 
 
 " Apollo here appears, a well-grown boy ; 
 Onatas' work in brass ; a pride and joy 
 To Jove and Leto : proof that not in vain \ 
 
 Jove loved her ; for by her we see again 
 The power that in Jove's eyes and forehead reign. J 
 Nor should this work give pain to Juno's heart ; 
 Here Elithia crowns Onatas' art." 
 
 The epigrams referring to Diana are more numerous. 
 We shall quote one or two of them. This is on a 
 statue, by Diotimus : 
 
 " I am Diana, worthy of the name : 
 My sire, none else than Jove, these looks proclaim. 
 Confess, such maiden vigour here is found, 
 All earth's too narrow for my hunting-ground." 
 
 This, which is anonymous, is supposed to refer to a 
 picture : 
 
 " Where, Artemis, thy bow, thy quiver, too, 
 Around thy neck, and the strong Cretan shoe ; 
 The gold that clasps thy robe, thy purple dress 
 That shows thy knee in its full loveliness ? " 
 " Those for the chase I wear ; but now not so : 
 To meet men's offerings, it is thus I go."
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 147 
 
 DIANA'S FAVOUR TO LITTLE HOUNDS. 
 
 " When little Calathine was brought to bed 
 Of pups, Diana well her labour sped. 
 Not only human mothers here find grace ; 
 She aids her canine comrades of the chase." 
 
 But the most remarkable references to Apollo and 
 Diana in the Anthology have relation to the story of 
 Niobe, which will afterwards receive special consider- 
 ation. 
 
 Bacchus has been already referred to as a subject 
 of art, and we shall now give some more allusions to 
 him. 
 
 UPON A STATUE OF ARIADNE. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 "No mortal sculptor, liai-clius' self, 
 Thy lover, on this rocky sin-It' 
 Saw thee reclined, so heavenly fair, 
 And then lor ever fixed tliee there." 
 
 The following epigram by Evenus refers to a sub- 
 ject already noticed. Bland thus explains it : 
 " The proportion of water with which the more 
 moderate among the Grecian sages recommended that 
 wine should be diluted was as three parts in four a 
 recommendation here ingeniously typified by linking 
 Bacchus with three water-nymphs in the dance." 
 The translation wo give is by the younger Merivale, 
 a little altered : 
 
 " Water your wine to keep in moderation, 
 There's grief or madness in a strong potation. 
 For always it is Bacchus' highest pleasure 
 To move with Naiads three in mingled measure.
 
 148 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Tis there you'll find him famous company 
 
 For sports and loves and decent jollity ; 
 
 But, when alone, avoid his fiery breath, 
 
 He breathes not love but sleep, not far from death." 
 
 The second couplet would more nearly resemble the 
 original thus : 
 
 " For Bacchus still delights, where three Nymphs mingle, 
 To make a fourth, instead of keeping single." 
 
 Here is an epigram, said to be Plato's, upon one of 
 Bacchus's attendants, a satyr, who, however, has taken 
 the temperance pledge, and whose image as a water- 
 bearer had been set up near a sleeping Cupid. The 
 translation is from Bland, a little altered : 
 
 " I from Dsedalean hands my birth derive, 
 And so this solid stone was taught to live. 
 A Satyr, once enrolled in Bacchus' band, 
 But now a comrade of the Nymphs I stand. 
 In purple wine denied to revel more, 
 Sweet draughts of water from my urn I pour. 
 But, stranger, softly tread, lest any sound 
 Awake yon boy, in rosy slumbers bound." 
 
 Hermes or Mercury seems next to claim attention, 
 and the variety of characters which, this deity ex- 
 hibited affords ample materials for reference to him. 
 The most general idea that pervades hi.- functions 
 seems to be that of intercourse or communication. He 
 was the patron of travellers, and presided over streets 
 and highways. He was the messenger of the gods, and 
 conveyed tidings from heaven to earth. He was the 
 Soul-escorter from this world to the next ; he facili-
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 149 
 
 tated communication among men by every means, 
 by language, by letters, and by merchandise. In these 
 qualities lay that resemblance to the Teutonic deity, 
 Odin or Woden, which led the Romans to consider 
 that the Germans worshipped Mercury. A trace of 
 that supposed connection is still to be seen in the 
 names given by the English and French to the middle 
 day of the week. 
 
 One mode of communication or interchange practised 
 and protected by Mercury was more objectionable than 
 others. He was the god of thieves, and an adept in that 
 irregular means of transferring property. He would 
 no doubt have been pleased with the euphemism of 
 Shakespeare's Pistol " Convey, the wise it call." Ho 
 patronised other arts, such as music and gymnastics ; 
 and these, too, were connected with social intercourse. 
 His humblest office, probably, was that of a milestone, 
 in which form he frequently figured. This epigram 
 is an example, it is anonymous: 
 
 " To Mercury pome travellers set up Me, 
 A heap of stones : small honour that could be. 
 So, as a like return, lie bids me tell 
 'Tis hence seven stadia to the she-goat's well." 
 
 The next gives him a better position and more 
 beneficent duties : 
 
 " Me, Hermes, near this breezy garden see ! 
 
 On the highway and by the grey sea-shore ; 
 To wearied men a resting-place to be, 
 
 While cooling waters from the fresh founts pour."
 
 150 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 ON A STATUE OF HERMES, BY SCOPAS. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 " Good friend, don't think that here you see 
 A common Mercury in me ; 
 A nobler deity I stand ; 
 The workmanship of Scopas' hand." 
 
 As Mercury was often set up over fields and gardens 
 to protect them from pillage, this was a delicate position 
 for one of his principles, which is pretty well brought 
 out in this epigram : 
 
 THE PASSENGER AND MERCURY. 
 
 "This cabbage, Hermes, may I clutch?" 
 " No, passenger, you must not touch." 
 " So stingy 1 " " No, but law commands 
 From others' goods to keep your hands." 
 " Ah, well ! but I can scarce believe 
 Tis Hennes tells me not to thieve." 
 
 Our next epigram shows the same god as suffering 
 from his own pupils and principles. It is by Lucillius, 
 the translation by Cow per: 
 
 " When Aulus, the nocturnal thief, made prize 
 Of Hermes, swift-winged envoy of the skies, 
 Hermes, Arcadia's king, the thief divine, 
 Who when an infant stole Apollo's kine, 
 And whom, as arbiter and overseer 
 Of our gymnastic sports, we planted here ; 
 ' Hermes,' he cried, ' you meet no new disaster ; 
 Ofttimes the pupil goes beyond his master.' " 
 
 UPON THE STATUE OF A BEARDLESS MERCURY SET UP 
 
 NEAR A BOYS' RACE-COURSE. 
 
 " Who set thee, beardless Hermes, here, this starting-post 
 to grace I"
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 151 
 
 " Hermogenes." " Of whom the son 1 " " Of Daimoneus." 
 
 "What place?" 
 " Of Antioch." " Why this honour done ? " " My needful 
 
 help he found 
 In running." " Where ? " " 9n Isthmian Loth and on 
 
 Nemean ground." 
 "He ran?" " And came in first." "O'er whom?" "O'er 
 
 boys in number nine ; 
 And then he flew as if his feet had wings as good as mine." 
 
 It would be tedious to go over all the deities to 
 whom the epigrams may refer, or to the statues or paint- 
 ings representing them. Enough has perhaps been 
 said to awaken interest in the subject ; and it will be 
 remembered that tho object of these observations is not 
 to give a history of art or a manual of mythology, but 
 to show by striking examples the mutual connection of 
 art and this form of poetry. We may dismiss the 
 chapter of the gods by a reference to two interesting 
 subjects. Mention has already been made of Venus as 
 the promoter of prosperous navigation. In that char- 
 acter she had other names, or had the aid of assistant 
 goddesses that did her bidding. An epigram of 
 Aildauis expressly refers to and describes an engraved 
 stone by Tryphon, representing Galene, tho goddess of 
 calm, one of those propitious deities, and it is believed 
 that extant gems exhibit the same subject: 
 
 " An Indian beryl, Tryphon won me o'er 
 To spread into a calm from shore to shore. 
 Galene's name and form he bade me bear, 
 And his soft hands let flow my lengthening hair. 
 See how my kisses soothe the watery deep, 
 And how my bosom lulls the waves to sleep !
 
 152 TIIE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Did not the envious stone my will confine, 
 You'd see me quickly floating on the brine." 
 
 One of the most remarkable of the minor Greek 
 deities was Nemesis, who seems scarcely to be repre- 
 sented by any Roman equivalent, unless we call her 
 Divine Vengeance. In superstitious minds among the 
 Greeks the idea appears to have existed that the gods 
 were envious of the good fortune of men, and on that 
 account visited them with affliction ; and we often 
 find the feeling of envy ascribed to Death or Hades in 
 currying off the young and lovely. But Nemesis, we 
 would fain think, had a higher origin and position in 
 the estimation of pious and reverential men. It was 
 her function to prescribe moderation in all things, and 
 to check all arrogance or presumption, and with thut 
 view to remind men of the mutability of events, and 
 the instability of mortal possessions. Nemesis is not 
 merely the avenger of actual crime, but the represser of 
 inordinate thoughts and pretensions of all kinds. Such 
 an influence is to be found in all religious systems, 
 and is experienced by all reflecting men. The story 
 of Polycrates's ring presents a pagan illustration of it. 
 The simple and amiable wife of Marmontel had some- 
 thing of that feeling : "'Nous sommes trop heureux,' me 
 disait ma femme ; ' il nous arrivera quelque malheur.' " 
 
 Two epigrams may here be given describing Nem- 
 esis by her usual accompaniments a measuring rule, 
 or her own fore-arm raised, and a bridle. 
 
 This is by an anonymous writer : 
 
 u Nemesis checks, with cubit-rule and bridle, 
 Immoderate deeds, and boastings rash and idle."
 
 L1TKRARY AND ARTISTIC. 153 
 
 Tliis also is anonymous ; it may be thus translated : 
 
 " I, Nemesis, this cubit hold ; you ask the reason why 1 
 1 Let nothing in excess be done ;' with this let all comply." 
 
 Mr King, in his ' Handbook' (p. 3G7), gives us the 
 engraving of a gem representing the Twin Nemeses, 
 patronesses of Smyrna. " One holds a bridle, the other 
 a measuring wand, and raises at the same time her 
 fore-arm or cubitus, thus typifying both self-restraint 
 and moderation." In another of Mr King's bonks 
 (his illustrations of Mr Munro's ' Horace '), a different 
 gem is exhibited, in which Nemesis is represented 
 without the bridle, but merely with her fore-arm up- 
 lifted, and with an ash-branch in her hand, while iit-r 
 brow is bent downwards under the bosom of her robe. 
 
 It was at one time supposed that Phidias was either 
 the sculptor or had superintended the formation of a 
 celebrated statue of Nemesis placed in the temple of 
 that deity at Rhamnus, and connected in some way 
 with the battle of Marathon. This statue has been the 
 subject of a good deal of apocryphal or doubtfvil tradi- 
 tion, referred to by Mr King in the ' Illustrated Horace.' 
 It was said that the Persians, when they invaded 
 ( ! recce before the battle of Marathon, had brought from 
 the island of Paros, which they passed in their voyage, 
 A block of marble for a trophy to be erected in Greece 
 in honour of their anticipated victories ; but that when 
 they were defeated at Marathon, the Greeks had seized 
 the stone, and converted it into a statue of Nemesis, to 
 be erected in her temple at Rhamnus, which is near 
 Marathon. The following epigram is extant in com-
 
 154 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 memoration of this supposed incident, a tempting 
 subject for an epigrammatist: 
 
 " ME Persians brought a trophy here to be 
 Of victory ; now a Nemesis they see. 
 Nay, both ; to Greece a trophy I shall stand, 
 To Persia, proof of Nemesis' high hand." 
 
 It is now suspected, however, that this tradition is 
 what Mr Story calls it, a pure " myth ;" and this be- 
 lief would be confirmed if we suppose that the Rham- 
 nusian statue in the Elgin room of the British Museum 
 was this Nemesis ; for it seems to be certain, " from 
 the recent examination of intelligent judges, that this 
 celebrated statue was not of Parian but of Pentelic 
 marble," which is quite distinguishable from Parian. 
 Another question remains, Whether the Rharnnusian 
 statue was by Phidias or not 1 as to which the prepon- 
 derance of evidence seems to be that it was the work of 
 his pupil and friend Agoracritos, whose name was put 
 as the maker of it on the branch of an ash-tree held 
 in the hand of the goddess. A story was also told of 
 Agoracritos having first made a statue of Venus, and 
 that having failed to obtain the prize for it, the prefer- 
 ence being given to another sculptor, he was so indig- 
 nant that, after making certain alterations, he sold it to 
 the people of Ehamnus as a Nemesis which is also 
 probably a myth. 
 
 On the supposition of the intended Persian trophy 
 being converted by the Greeks into a Nemesis, Dr 
 "Wellesley, in his Polyglot Anthology, refers to a parallel 
 incident in the conversion of a stone of Buonaparte's 
 column, intended to commemorate the successful in-
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 155 
 
 
 
 vasion of England, being alterwards used to record the 
 restoration of the Bourbons, and on that subject he 
 gives us the following epigram : 
 
 " Frenchmen, who brought this marble block to stand 
 A trophy of the invasion of yon land, 
 Behold ! it marks a Bourbon's restoration, 
 And tells that you are the invaded nation." 
 
 Something of the same sort happened to a French 
 pillar at Coblentz which the Eussians adopted. 
 
 The only result that we feel assured of in connection 
 with the Nemesis at Khamnus seems to be, that soon 
 after the battle of Marathon, and probably out of the 
 Persian spoils, which were of great value, a new 
 statue of that goddess was erected at her favourite 
 seat in Greece, where it long remained. 
 
 Nemesis seems to have been treated as a real goddess ; 
 but there were impersonations of abstract powers which 
 scarcely attained that rank, yet were made the subject 
 of artistic representation, and are referred to in the 
 epigrams accordingly. One of the most striking of 
 these was Opportunity, of which Lysippus made a very 
 remarkable statue, the subject of a clever epigram by 
 Posidippus, of which a translation shall now be given : 
 
 "The sculptor whence?" "From Sicyon." "Who?" 
 
 " Lysippus is his name." 
 " And you ? " " I'm Opportunity, that all things rule and 
 
 tame." 
 '* On tiptoe why ? " "I always run." " Why winglets 
 
 on your feet 
 And double too?" "Before the wind I fly with progress 
 
 fleet."
 
 156 THE GREEK ANTUOLOGY. 
 
 " Why is a razor in your hand ?" " To teach men this to 
 
 know, 
 
 That sharper than a razor's edge the times for action grow." 
 " Why this lock on your forehead 1 " " That you all may 
 
 seize me there." 
 
 " And why then is your occiput so very bald and bare ? " 
 " That none who once have let me pass may ever have the 
 
 power 
 
 To pull me back, and bring again the once-neglected hour." 
 " Why did the artist fashion you ? " " For your instruction, 
 
 friend, 
 And placed me in this vestibule these lessons to commend." 
 
 This epigram was translated by Ausonius, who, from 
 error or design, stated the artist of the statue to lie 
 Phidias, an error which leads one to suspect that lie 
 was not a very good judge of art, or well acquainted 
 with its history. 
 
 We proceed next to those epigrams that relate to 
 demigods and heroes, with their images. Of these 
 Hercules may be considered the first and greatest. 
 The myths of this deity present some singular fea- 
 tures. The radical idea impersonates the perfection 
 of bodily strength, and thus completes the cycle of 
 artistic development in the human form, which had 
 already comprised Jupiter as the emblem of majesty, 
 Apollo of manly beauty, Hermes of activity and agil- 
 ity. But the bulky strength of Hercules is at the 
 same time accompanied by a less perfect intellectual 
 organisation. Some of the philosophical teachers, and 
 in particular Prodicus, in his well-known and very 
 beautiful apologue, represents him as deliberately mak- 
 ing his choice, at his entry upon active life, between
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 157 
 
 the rival invitations of Virtue and Pleasure ; but t!fte 
 popular notion encroaches upoti this ideal, and shows 
 him always, indeed, as a redresser of wrongs and an 
 abater of nuisances, but also as not unfrequently 
 seduced into some of the vices to which corporeal 
 strength is occasionally subject, such as gluttony and 
 drunkenness, and facility under female influence. Ko 
 character is oftener chosen as the subject both of artistic 
 arid of epigrammatic representation than this hero in 
 the various phases of his development. His first 
 achievement in strangling the serpents sent against 
 him by Juno is seen on several gems, of which two 
 will be found in Spence's book. The following epi- 
 gram on that subject is by an unknown author : 
 
 "Crush, Hercules, with all that infant strength, 
 Those dragon folds, those throats of giant length : 
 Strive to appease even now the fury wild 
 Of Juno ; learn to labour, yet a child. 
 No brazen cup or caldron is the prize, 
 But the bright road that leads to yonder skies." 
 
 Spence's book gives well-known engravings forming 
 a complete series of Hercules's twelve labours, and 
 there are several epigrams that enumerate them. We 
 insert one by Philippufi as a specimen : 
 
 " The Nemean monster, and the Hydra dire 
 I quelled : the Bull, the Boar, I saw expire 
 Under my hands ; I seized the queenly Zone, 
 And Diomede's fierce steeds I made my own. 
 I plucked the golden Apples : Geryon slew : 
 And what I could achieve Augeas knew : 
 The Hind I caught : the vile Birds ceased their flight : 
 Cerberus I upwards dragged; and gained Olympus' height."
 
 158 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 * This special epigram on his combat with the lion, 
 by Damagetus, is believed to refer to a statue of Her- 
 cules while engaged in that struggle, which stood in 
 Home in the time of Ovid, and which is thought to 
 have been afterwards removed to Byzantium, and much 
 admired there : 
 
 " The Nemean Lion and the Argive guest, 
 Of wild beasts and of demigods the best, 
 Engage in combat, each with scowling eye, 
 To solve the issue, who shall live or die. 
 Jove, let the Argive man the victor be, 
 That Nemea safe again to traverse we may see." 
 
 Another special epigram on his killing the Mrena 
 lian Hind, by an anonymous author, describes accurately 
 the attitude depicted in all the artistic representations 
 of that achievement : 
 
 " How shall my gazing eyes and thoughtful mind 
 Enough admire the Hero and the Hind? 
 On the beast's loins his knee is firmly set, 
 While on her branching horns his hands have met. 
 She, breathing heavily with lips apart, 
 Shows by her tongue the pressure at her heart. 
 Rejoice, Alcides ; we in her behold 
 Not the horns only, but the whole of gold." 
 
 ON A STATUE OF HERCULES AND ANTAEUS. 
 
 The translation by Hay. 
 
 " Who hath impressed on brass that mournful air 
 
 Of one who struggles 'gainst Alcides' might ? 
 
 Instinct with life, there force and fierce despair 
 
 Fill us with mingled pity and affright. 
 Under Alcides' grasp Antaeus see, 
 Writhing and groaning in his agony."
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 159 
 
 "We have here rather a different picture of the youth 
 who had made the path of virtue his choice : 
 
 HERCULES IN A STATE OF EBRIETY. 
 
 " This, the all-conquering hero, brave and strong, 
 
 For his twelve labours famed in poets' song, 
 
 Heavy with drink, now staggers in his gait, 
 
 Subdued by Bacchus to this helpless state." 
 
 We formerly had an epigram assimilating the rather 
 incongruous characters of Minerva and Bacchus. Hero 
 there is one of the same nature, suggested by the asso- 
 ciated statues of Bacchus and Hercules : 
 
 " Both Thebans, warriors both, and sons of Jove : 
 That Thyrsus, and this Club, our terror move : 
 Of like extent their toils : their garbs akin, 
 Clad in the faun's or in the lion's skin ; 
 One loves the cymbals, one the rattle's din. 
 Juno to both was hostile, but each came 
 From earth to heaven by paths that led through flame." 
 
 Bacchus used the cymbals in his Indian conquests ; 
 Hercules the rattle in one of his labours, that of 
 frightening away the Stymphalides : Bacchus was dei- 
 fied through the fate of his mother Semele ; Hercules 
 ascended to heaven from his great funeral pyre. 
 
 In the next epigram we have Hercules contrasted 
 with another god, Mercury, in their character of 
 guardians of the shepherds' flocks : 
 
 " Ye shepherds, Hermes can be won with ease ; 
 A little milk or honey's sure to please : 
 Not so Alcides ; he demands a ram, 
 All to himself, or at the least a lamb. 
 What though he checks the wolves ? 'tis nought to me 
 Which of them eats my sheep, the wolf or he."
 
 160 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 There is a paraphrase by Prior of the latter part of 
 this epigram, in which the shepherd positively refuses 
 to pay "black-mail" to Hercules for protecting him 
 against robbery : 
 
 " When hungry wolves had trespass'd on the fold, 
 And the robbed shepherd his sad story told ; 
 ' Call in Alcides,' said a crafty priest ; 
 . 4 Give him one half, and he'll secure the rest.' 
 * No ! ' said the shepherd ; ' if the Fates decree, 
 By ravaging my flock to ruin me, 
 To their commands I willingly resign, 
 Power is their character, and patience mine ; 
 Though, troth, to me there seems but little odds 
 Who prove the greatest robbers, wolves or gods ! ' " 
 
 Hercules had always a character for voracity, and no 
 doubt needed large supplies of food to support that 
 bulky frame, such as the Farnese Hercules may still 
 show us. In another epigram Hermes complains of 
 not getting his fair share of the offerings made jointly 
 to him and Hercules, as associated together in watching 
 the boundaries between two estates or territories: 
 
 " Ye friends who pass this way, whether you come 
 From town or country, whichsoe'er your home, 
 Here we two gods, to guard these marches set, 
 I Mercury, he Hercules, are met. 
 Both willing to oblige : but our reward 
 Is far from equal for thus mounting guard. 
 My pears, my figs, I see him still devour : 
 He does not leave me even the stale or sour. 
 I hate this partnership ! what gifts you bear, 
 Bring them in portions, giving each his share, ; 
 And say, ' Here, Hercules,' and ' Hermes, here,' 
 And thus our feud at last may disappear."
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC., 161 
 
 Hercules was a favourite subject of representation 
 with the eminent sculptor Lysippus, who among other 
 honours had the monopoly of making statues of Alex- 
 ander the Great. A statue of Hercules by Lysippus 
 exhibited him in a depressed state, apparently from 
 love, and to this the following epigram by Geminus is 
 considered to allude : 
 
 ON A BRONZE STATUE, BY LYSIPPUS, OP HERCULES 
 DEPRESSED. 
 
 " Whore, Hercules, thy club, thy lion's skin, 
 Tliy bow, thy quiver, with its darts within 
 AVhr.re thy proud look I why di<l Lvsippus' art 
 Such pain, such sadness, to the bronze impart 1 
 Stripped of thine anus thou griev'st : who used theeso? 
 The winged Love, the one resistless foe." 
 
 Theseus is another hero of illustrious name. He is 
 said to have followed in Hercules's footsteps, though 
 he was not deified so authentically as his prototype. 
 There is an epigram upon a statue said to have repre- 
 sented his combat with the Marathonian bull. I'.ut 
 there have been found several gems, and a remark- 
 able mosaic, representing undoubtedly the combat of 
 Theseus with the Minotaur; and it is not inipossiMu 
 that the epigram in question relates to that subject. 
 It is anonymous : 
 
 
 
 " A miracle of art ! this deadly fight : 
 The man bears down the bull with matchless might. 
 With knee upon his foe his hands he lays, 
 One on the nostrils, one the horn to raise : 
 
 A. C. VOl. XX. L
 
 162 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 He twists the neck-joints with a fatal clasp, 
 And back the monster falls with struggling gasp. 
 Who sees the skilful brass, would think he viewed 
 The beast's quick breath, the man with sweat bedewed." 
 
 Salmoneus was not a hero, "but he affected to be a god. 
 A picture of him was painted by Polygnotus, on which 
 there is this epigram by Geminus : 
 
 Me Polygnotus' hand produced : with Jove 
 In rival thunderings, I, Salmoneus, strove : 
 Though I'm in Hades now, his thunders seek 
 My likeness, which no boasting words can speak. 
 Spare, Jove, your bolts : give o'er the inglorious strife : 
 War not with images, devoid of life." 
 
 One sees here an example of the confusion of ideas 
 which the epigrammatist, perhaps wilfully, introduces, 
 as if to puzzle his reader. The picture showed Jupiter 
 directing his thunder against Salmoneus. But if Sal- 
 moneus was but a dead image, so was Jupiter himself. 
 
 The story of Niobe forms a frequent subject of 
 epigrams, and may be considered in this place. It is 
 hopeless to attempt any strict order of chronology as 
 to personages and events that may possibly be alto- 
 gether fabulous. 
 
 The father of Niobe was Tantalus, who was honoured 
 by the friendship and hospitality of Jupiter, but un- 
 fortunately got into disgrace by repeating some con- 
 fidential communication which had been made to him 
 at Jupiter's table. This no ctoubt was very wrong, 
 but the punishment inflicted was rather severe. He 
 was placed in Tartarus, and suffered perpetual hunger 
 and thirst; while a huge stone, impending over him,
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 163 
 
 threatened constantly to destroy him. The following 
 epigram, by ^Elius Gallus, relates to his punishment. 
 The version is taken chiefly from that of Hay : 
 
 ON A TANTALUS SCULPTURED ON A DRINKING-CUP. 
 
 " See how the guest of gods, who often quaffed 
 
 The nectar's purple juice, now longs to sip 
 
 A drop of water while the envious draught 
 
 Shrinks downward, far away from that parched lip 
 In silence drink,' tliis sculpture says, ' and know 
 A froward tongue brought such excess of woe.' " 
 
 Niobe, like her father, became an object of divine 
 resentment for a similar fault, incontinence of tongue. 
 Becoming the mother, as some say, of fourteen chil- 
 dren, she could not refrain from boasting of her pre- 
 eminence in fertility over Latona, the mother of only a 
 pair, Apollo and Diana. These deities avenged the 
 insult by destroying all Niobe's children and turning 
 herself to stone, or allowing her grief to have that 
 eilect. Sculptors were fond of representing her fate, 
 and in particular a group of statues was produced, 
 which was ultimately brought to Eome, and of which 
 it was doubted whether Praxiteles or Scopas was the 
 artist. It seems now to be considered certain that 
 Scopas has the merit. In later times this group, or 
 ancient duplicates of it, were found in Italy, and in 
 1770 the statues so found were removed to Florence, 
 where they are known as the Niobids, and are de- 
 servedly admired as of first-rate excellence. Here is 
 one of the epigrams upon Niobe, by Antipater of 
 Sidon:
 
 164 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 11 Tantalus' daughter this : once proud to show 
 Her fourteen children now, oh sight of woe ! 
 A monumental victim here she stands 
 Of Phosbus and Diana's vengeful hands. 
 He all the sons she all the daughters slew 
 At once twice Seven were stripped of life by Two. 
 The mother of so many thus bereft, 
 Had not even one to soothe her sorrows left. 
 Not, as is wont, did children deck her tomb ; 
 To bury them was here the parent's doom. 
 Sins of the tongue on her, as on her sire, 
 Brought down in varying forms celestial ire : 
 She, turned to stone ; he, filled with fear and dread, 
 With that huge rock impending o'er his head." 
 
 The next that we give presents the story in a more 
 dramatic form, and is by Meleager, translated by Hay. 
 A messenger speaks: 
 
 " Daughter of Tantalus, lorn Niobe, 
 Sad are the tidings which I bear to thee, 
 Words fraught with woe : ay, now unbind thy hair, 
 The streaming signal of thy wild despair : 
 For Phoebus' darts grief-painted reek with gore, 
 Alas ! alas ! thy sons are now no more. 
 But what is this what means this oozing flood ! 
 Her daughters, too, are Aveltering in their blood. 
 One clasps a mother's knees, one clings around 
 Her neck, and one lies prostrate on the ground : 
 One seeks her breast : one eyes the coming woe, 
 And shudders : one is trembling, crouching low : 
 The seventh is breathing out her latest sigh, 
 And life-in-death is flickering in that eye. 
 She the woe-stricken mother left alone, 
 Erst full of words is now mute-stricken stone."
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 165 
 
 A part of the tradition seems to have been that Niobe, 
 thua transformed, was carried off in a whirlwind and 
 fixed on the top of a mountain in Phrygia, which Pau- 
 sanias says he visited, when he saw in the mountain, 
 not near at hand but at a certain distance, the like- 
 ness of a woman weeping. Ovid embodies this part 
 of the story in the account of her in his ' Metamor- 
 phoses : ' 
 
 " Borne on the whirlwind to her native land, 
 See on the mountain-top the statue stand. 
 There ever fixed, still weeping she appears, 
 And from the marble mass even now distil the tears." 
 
 A playful epigram on the subject of Niobe proceeds 
 on the mistaken idea that Praxiteles was the artist by 
 whom her statue was made. It runs thus : 
 
 " Me the gods turned to stone, but turned in vain ; 
 Praxiteles has made me live again." 
 
 The story of Medea is another frequent and favourite 
 subject of art, to which several epigrams refer in a 
 manner full of interest. 
 
 Among the painters of antiquity, few have a greater 
 name than Timomachus, who is mentioned with high 
 praise by the best ancient writers upon art. Two of 
 his pictures were bought by Julius Caesar at the .price 
 of eighty talents, equal to about 20,000, and placed 
 by him in the temple which he dedicated to Venus 
 Genetrix, as the ancestress of the Julian race. These 
 two works which came thus to be publicly accessible 
 at Rome, are the subjects of several epigrams. One of
 
 166 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 these pictures, representing Medea preparing to destroy 
 her children, out of resentment against Jason her hus- 
 band, is expressly deak with by different epigram- 
 matists, who notice its most distinguishing excellence 
 in representing in Medea's features the conflict be- 
 tween parental love and conjugal jealousy and rage. 
 It is believed that Antiphilus, who flourished in the 
 first century of our era, led the way in putting this 
 encomium into a poetical shape, but he was followed 
 by others. The title is 
 
 UPON A LIKENESS OF MEDEA AT ROME. 
 
 " Timomachus, when his skilled hand designed 
 
 To paint Medea's much distracted mind, 
 
 Chose a great task, the double power to prove 
 
 Of jealous hatred and maternal love. 
 
 One passion asked a look to anger bent, 
 
 And one as strongly to compassion leant. 
 Both he achieved : the picture tells the truth ; 
 
 Tears mix with threats, and rage combines with ruth. 
 
 Delay was here most wise : the deed thus planned 
 
 Befits Medea's not the artist's hand." 
 
 This is a shorter form of the same idea, by an anony- 
 mous author : 
 
 " Timomachus has hi Medea's face 
 
 Her hate and mother's love at once portrayed : 
 Here jealous rage, affection there we trace ; 
 
 Thus seems her children's fate a while delayed. 
 She longs to wield, ehe fears to use, the glaive 
 Wishing at once to slay them and to save." 
 
 Lessing, in his Laocoon, that admirable exposition of 
 the diiFering objects and limits of poetry and the fine
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 167 
 
 arts, has commented on the judgment shown by Timo- 
 machus in choosing as the time of his representation, 
 not the actual murder of Medea's children, but the 
 moment before it, when we anticipate the result, but 
 are saved the repulsive pain of witnessing it. Another 
 Greek epigram on the same subject has expressed the 
 very principle contended for by Lessing namely, that 
 the mimetic arts of painting and sculpture ought not 
 to perpetuate by their unchanging representations the 
 extreme limits of what is horrible or shocking. The 
 lines are :- 
 
 " Wisely the artist has the end concealed, 
 Lest admiration should to horror yield." 
 
 Lessing says that the praise thus deservedly earned 
 by Timomachus contrasts with the censure directed in 
 an epigram by Philippus against another artist, who 
 had represented Medea in the full height of her frenzy, 
 without any mixture of a milder emotion. We are 
 not sure upon what authority this is stated ; but here 
 is a translation .of the epigram, though the text is not 
 without difficulties, and seems partially corrupt : 
 
 " Who breathed, thou lawless Colchian, such fierce ire 
 Into thy likeness, such barbarian fire ? 
 Thy cliildren's blood dost thou yet thirst to spill ? 
 Glauce again for a new Jason kill ? 
 Hence, cursed murderess, whose relentless heart 
 Dares to infect with hate the painter's ait ! " 
 
 The Ajax of the same painter was also much 
 admired, as exhibiting a similar feeling of propriety and 
 soundness oi judgment. The subject is the insanity of
 
 168 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Ajax, following upon the decision of the Greeks which 
 awarded the arms of Achilles not to him but to Ulys- 
 ses. The contest is admirably narrated in the 13th 
 Book of Ovid's ' Metamorphoses,' of which Dryden has 
 given an excellent version. 
 
 The effect of the judgment on Ajax is thus described 
 by Ovid : 
 
 " He who could often and alone withstand 
 The foe, the fire, and Jove's own partial hand, 
 
 - Now cannot his unmastered grief sustain, 
 But yields to rage, to madness, and disdain. 
 Then snatching out his falchion, ' Thou,' said he, 
 * Art mine ; Ulysses lays no claim to thee. 
 Oh, often-tried and ever-trusty sword, 
 Now do thy last kind office to thy lord. 
 'Tis Ajax who requests thy aid, to show 
 None hut himself himself could overthrow." 
 
 But Ovid does not mention the intermediate effects 
 of Ajax's insanity, during which he is said to have 
 attacked and slaughtered the sheep and oxen in the 
 fields, in the belief that they were the Greek judges who 
 had denied him his rights. In Timomachus's picture, 
 however, as Lessing observes, " he was not represented 
 in the height of his paroxysm, slaughtering the rams and 
 the he-goats, which he mistakes for his enemies ; but 
 in the state of exhaustion which succeeded to these feats, 
 revisited by reason, and meditating self-destruction. 
 And this in strict meaning is the " Distracted Ajax " of 
 the tragedy : not that he is so now, but because we see 
 his distraction expounded by its effects, and the enor- 
 mity of it measured by the acuteness of his shame.
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 169 
 
 Several poems in the Anthology have reference 
 to Ajax, and some of them undoubtedly to this 
 picture by Timoiuachus. This is an anonymous 
 one : 
 
 " Ajax, Timomaohus may better claim 
 To be your sire than he who bears the name : * 
 Art has assumed the place of Nature's power. 
 The painter saw you in your frenzied hour, 
 And his hand caught the madness. Grief appears, 
 Mixed in each varied form of pain and tears." 
 
 This that follows, by Leonidas, not of Tarentum, is 
 understood by some critics with great probability, wo 
 think to represent " the words that Ajax would have 
 spoken when about to destroy himself :" 
 
 " I now, whom Mars was still afraid to slay, 
 Struck by an inward foe, here waste away. 
 Come, sword, my bosom pierce ! drive hence afar, * 
 With manly force, disease as well as war." 
 
 Gravelle,t in his 'Ancient Gems/ gives a stone re- 
 presenting the suicide of a hero, which he considers to 
 apply to Ajax. 
 
 Ajax seems to have been a favourite with the epi- 
 grammatists as well as with the artists, as there are 
 several epigrams upon his defeat in his contest for the 
 armour of Achilles, and upon his consequent suicide. 
 We give some examples. 
 
 This is by Asclepiades, perhaps referring to some 
 work of art : 
 
 * Telamon. t Gravelle, ii. 60.
 
 170 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " I, Valour, wretched maid, sit here forlorn 
 By Ajax' tomb, my locks for sorrow shorn : 
 Grieved at my heart, among the Greeks to see 
 Crafty and base Deceit preferred to me." 
 
 The next, by an uncertain author, refers to his 
 suicide, and may have been borrowed from vid : 
 
 " Of Telamonian Ajax this the tomb : 
 From his own hand and sword he met his doom 
 For Fate, though willing, found no other way 
 A hero so invincible to slay." 
 
 Here is a singular epigram on Ajax, of which the 
 text seems not very pure, and the allusions require 
 explanation : 
 
 " Beside brave Ajax' tomb a Phrygian stood, 
 And mocked the chief with ribald words and rude. 
 ' Ajax no more stood firm,' the scoffer said : 
 ' He did stand firm,' cried out the indignant dead ; 
 
 . Whereat, in fear, the living Phrygian fled," 
 
 The tomb of Ajax, on the Trojan plain, was ob- 
 noxious to the natives, who retained the tradition 
 of his having destroyed their cattle in his madness. 
 The peasants used to utter maledictions against him 
 over his grave ; but the story was told that on one 
 occasion a shout came from the earth which put to 
 flight his calumniators. In the epigram above quoted, 
 the reproach urged against Ajax is taken from a line 
 in the 15th Book of Homer, where Ajax is represented 
 as retiring for a moment before Hector's attack on the 
 Grecian ships ; but he rallied immediately, and 
 achieved prodigies of valour. 
 
 The incidents of the Trojan War were frequent 
 
 I
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 171 
 
 subjects of artistic representation. With consummate 
 ait, Virgil, in the ^Eneid, leads his shipwrecked hero 
 to a temple in Carthage, where already the tale of 
 Troy had been, in full detail, sculptured or painted on 
 the wall. If our readers will turn to the volume of 
 this series which contains Virgil, p. 51, they will find 
 an animated description of the scene ; and the whole 
 passage may be read with pleasure in Dryden's trans- 
 lation, thougli it may be doubted if there was not a 
 certain degree of anachronism in supposing so early 
 an advance in art. 
 
 Among the most celebrated of actual pictures on 
 Homeric subjects are those which the painter Polyg- 
 notus executed for the Lesche or Conversation-room 
 at Delphi, as an offering by the Cnidians to Apollo. 
 One of these was the " Taking of Troy," to which was 
 attached an epigram ascribed to Simonides. The 
 translation is somewhat too paraphrastic : 
 
 " This picture, traced by Polygnotus' hand, 
 (Aglaophon's son, and born on Thaso.s' strand), 
 To tell its wondrous tale has here been placed, 
 And show the citadel of Troy laid waste." 
 
 There still survive, in the form of gems or engraved 
 stones, miniature representations of Trojan events, of 
 which the larger pictures or sculptures may have sup- 
 plied themes for descriptive epigrams. The works 
 treating of ancient gems contain much interesting 
 information on this subject. In particular, Mr 
 King's beautiful books on the Glyptic Art show us a 
 full series of gems still preserved on classical my-
 
 172 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 thology, on the epic cycles, and on Trojan tradition, 
 which may readily be connected with many epigrams. 
 Spence's ' Polynietis,' already referred to, though an 
 old-fashioned book, will also be of use. Some of the 
 epigrams alluded to have already been given, and we 
 shall now notice a few others. 
 
 One of the gems represents ^Eneas issuing from the 
 gates of Troy with Anchises upon his shoulder, and 
 leading the boy Ascanius in his hand. The follow- 
 ing epigram relates to that subject, and perhaps has 
 reference to the work of art from which the gem was 
 taken : 
 
 " From burning Troy, from ranks of hostile spears, 
 ./Eneas laden with his sire appears ; 
 A holy burden for a pious son ! 
 ' Spare him, ye Greeks,' he cries ; ' no glory's won 
 O'er an old man in battle : but to me, 
 Bearing him safe, how great the gain will be ! '" 
 
 The story of Philoctetes, too, belongs to the cycle of 
 the Trojan War, and was also a common subject of art. 
 Here are two epigrams upon him : the first upon a 
 picture by Parrhasius, who used to boast that he saw 
 in sleep or in his mind's eye everything that he 
 painted ; the other is upon a piece of sculpture : 
 
 " Trachinian Philoctetes, wretched wight ! 
 Parrhasius drew, such as he met his sight. 
 'Twixt his parched eyelids lurks the languid tear, 
 And all his wasting toil is pictured here. 
 Thou best of artists, great thy skill, but oh ! 
 Twas time to free him from this tearful woe ! "
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 173 
 
 " Worse than the Greeks, a new Ulysses, he, 
 Who sculptured thus my wound and agony. 
 This rock, these rags are sad the sore, the pain ; 
 But now in brass, my misery must remain." 
 
 The following epigram relates obviously to a picture 
 of Capaneus at the siege of Thebes, an event earlier 
 than the Trojan War. Capaneus was struck by 
 lightning from Jupiter for his presumption, and this 
 gives the epigrammatist his hint. The picture was by 
 Polygnotus : 
 
 " Had Capaneus at Thebes such rage displayed, 
 When, its high towers to scale, his feet essayed, 
 The city had been stormed in fate's despite, 
 For even Jove's bolts had feared with him to fight." 
 
 Though somewhat out of place in the order of 
 time to which the works of art referred to may seem 
 to belong, we shall here insert two epigrams connected 
 with the well-known story of Arion, of whom there 
 was erected a statue at Corinth, representing also the 
 dolphin which brought him safe to land : . 
 
 " When sweet Arion, Cycles' son, implored the aid of 
 
 Heaven, 
 To bear him from Sicilian seas was this Conveyance 
 
 given." 
 
 " This image of Arion here great Periander placed, 
 
 Ami of the Dolphin who gave aid with such effectual 
 
 haste, 
 
 Saving from death the sinking bard : Arion's fable shows, 
 From men we oft destruction meet, from fish salvation 
 
 flows." 
 
 Leaving now gods and heroes, and fabulous persons
 
 174 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 and events, we may proceed to those works of art, or 
 rather to those epigrams upon such works, which deal 
 with realities. One of the most distinguished of the 
 second class of artists was Myro, or Myron, who, 
 though he aspired occasionally to represent deities 
 or heroes, was yet more at home on humbler subjects. 
 A proof of this is perhaps to be found in the im- 
 portance which was attached to his celebrated statue 
 of a heifer, on which an interminable quantity of 
 epigrams was written. We shall not trouble our 
 readers with many of these, for it must be acknow- 
 ledged that they constitute a very idle assemblage of 
 laborious trifles. One of them we shall give as a 
 specimen, from which the character of the others may 
 be inferred. It is by Antipater : 
 
 " Methinks this heifer is about to low : \ 
 
 So, not Prometheus only, Myron, thou, 
 Like him, with life canst lifeless things endow." ) 
 
 Myro made a statue of Bacchus also, to which the 
 following epigram refers : 
 
 " Bacchus, once more you from the fire come forth ; 
 'Tis Myron now who gave this second birth." 
 
 Besides these subjects, Myron particularly excelled 
 in athletic figures. The victors in the public games 
 were frequent subjects of art, especially of sculptui-e, 
 and are so referred to in many epigrams, whether 
 actual or descriptive. Here is one by Simonides, 
 which it is probable was actually inscribed on a 
 statue of Milo, the celebrated athlete :
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 175 
 
 " This, Milo's image ! wondrous fair to see, 
 Of a form wondrous iair ! at Pisa he 
 Victor seven times, to none e'er bowed the knee." 
 
 The speed of Ladas as a runner was much extolled 
 by ancient writers ; there were two of the name, the 
 more celebrated of the two being an Argive, who was 
 hyperbolically said to ran with such velocity and light- 
 ness that he left no traces of his steps in the dust 
 over which he passed. He is referred to in several 
 epigrams more or less seriously. This is one by an 
 unknown Avriter : 
 
 " If Ladas ran or flew, in that last race, 
 Who knows 1 'twas such a demon of a pace." 
 
 To which another couplet was added, to this 
 effect: 
 
 " Scarce was the starting-rope withdrawn, when there 
 Ladas stood crowned, yet had not turned a hair." 
 
 A parody upon this appeared upon a runner who was 
 so slow that he seemed never to move : 
 
 " If Pericles there ran or sate, none know : 
 He was so demoniacally slow. 
 
 Scarce was the starting-rope withdrawn, when there 
 Ladas stood crowned, and Pericles was where ? " 
 
 The serious epigram upon Ladas may be thus trans- 
 lated nearly as Hay has done : 
 
 " Such as thou wert when with aerial bound, 
 Thy tiptoe never seen to touch the ground, 
 Thou fledst, outstripping Thymus' swift career, 
 Such, Ladas, Myro's brass reveals thee here, 
 Where every limb and sinew sei-ms to breathe 
 Assured prediction of the Pisan wreath."
 
 176 TllK GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 It has been thought that the original epigram stopped 
 here; but as given in the Anthology of Plumules there 
 are four more lines, which perhaps rather weaken than 
 improve the previous part. These have been thus 
 translated : 
 
 " How full of hope! those hollow flanks aspire 
 To send up to the lips a breath-like fire. 
 Soon on the wreath, unchecked, the brass will start, 
 Oh, swifter than the wind, the sculptor's art ! " 
 
 We formerly referred to Lysippus, the Court sculp 
 tor to Alexander the Great ; and an epigram may here 
 be given on a statue by him of that monarch, which 
 was considered remarkable for its fidelity : 
 
 ON A STATUE BY LYSIPPUS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 
 By Archelaus. 
 
 " Lysippus formed in brass the courage high 
 
 Of Alexander, and his aspect bold : 
 The brass looks up to heaven, and seems to cry : 
 The earth is mine : thou, Jove, Olympus hold." 
 
 There are epigrams upon pictures of private persons, 
 which are interesting one in particular, by Nossis, a 
 Locrian lady, on her child's picture ; and another on 
 a friend. The translations are by Hay : 
 
 " This is Melinna's self : the gentle child 
 Looks sweetly on me with those eyes so mild. 
 My own dear daughter oh! what bliss to trace 
 A parent's features in an infant face ! "
 
 LITERARY AND ARTISTIC. 177 
 
 II. 
 " Thy mare te, thy very self is there, 
 
 Pictured in all thy dignity and grace : 
 Thy noble pride, thine awe-commanding air, 
 
 Mingled with mildness in that lovely face ; 
 Shaking his tail, thy faithful dog draws near, 
 Deeming he gazes on his mistress dear." 
 
 Another of the same kind is by Erinna : 
 
 " This painting, best Prometheus, for thy shrine 
 Accept : see, human hands have skill like thin* 1 . 
 If he who thus this maiden drew had known i 
 To add a voice, we had rejoiced to own 
 All Agatharchis to the life here shown." 
 
 Here is an epigram which obviously attempts to de- 
 scribe a picture mentioned by Pliny as painted by a 
 Theban painter, Aristides, of a mother mortally wound- 
 ed in a siege, but still in her last agony suckling her 
 child. It is by ^Emilianus : 
 
 " Suck, hapless babe, this breast while yet I live ; 
 Draw the last drop thy mother e'er can give. 
 The foeman's sword lias robbed me of my breath, 
 But a true mother's love survives in death." 
 
 Some epigrams may here be added alluding to actual 
 gems or other works of art of a minor character. Pliny 
 tells us of a Satyr represented on a cup, rather put to 
 sleep there than carved : an epigram embodies that 
 very idea: 
 
 " This Satyr was not carved, but laid asleep : 
 Nudge him, he'll wake in wrath ; so, quiet keep." 
 
 Here is a description of a painting imitated on a 
 crystal, the artist being Satyreius : 
 
 A. c. voL xx. M
 
 178 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 u Zeuxis' sweet colouring and style are here ; 
 In this small crystal all the charms appear 
 Of great Arsinoe's form ; you see her stand 
 Fashioned and sent by Satyreius' hand ; 
 The likeness of the queenly dame am I, 
 And noway short in grace or majesty." 
 
 Here is another epigram, describing a carved stone : 
 
 " A tiny stone, a jasper, here displays 
 Five oxen carved, who seem to live and graze ; 
 And soon the little herd would wander hence, 
 If not imprisoned by their golden fence." 
 
 Some of the epigrams of this artistic character may 
 seem trifling, but others are undoubtedly fine, and all 
 of them are interesting. Yet we venture to say that 
 never was poetry in its best days employed to illustrate 
 art with so much truth and beauty as in our own 
 time, in Byron's exquisite description of the Dying 
 Gladiator.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 
 
 IT world not have been conformable either to human 
 nature in general, or to Greek nature in particular, if 
 the c< antry and the literature that produced Aristo- 
 phanes should not in its less serious compositions have 
 given some place for wit and sarcasm. We find, ac- 
 cordingly, that these elements are not wanting. A 
 great many epigrams both of a jocular and of a satirical 
 kind are well deserving of notice, of which specimens 
 shall now be given. 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, are the proper objects of ridicule 
 better set forth than in the Introduction to one of 
 Foote's farces. He refuses to bring on the stage mere 
 bodily defects or natural misfortunes ; and when asked 
 to say at what things we may laugh with propriety, 
 answers thus : " At an old beau, a superannuated 
 beauty, a military coward, a stuttering orator, or a 
 gouty dancer. In short, whoever aifects to be what he 
 is not, or strives to be what he cannot, is an object 
 worthy the poet's pen and your mirth." 
 
 "We do not say that the Greek epigrammatist always 
 abstained from making merry at mere bodily defects ; 
 but we shall avoid as much as possible those that have
 
 180 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 no other recommendation. The proper object of ridi- 
 cule is surely Folly, and the proper object of satire, 
 Vice. Within the present section, however, will 
 be included not merely the ridicule of sarcasm and 
 the attacks of satire, but any also of those merry or 
 witty views of nature and things that tend to produce 
 sympathetic laughter. 
 
 Of bodily peculiarities there are some at which it is 
 difficult not to smile ; and if it is done good-hum our- 
 edly, and rather as a warning to abstain from vanity 
 or conceit, there is no harm in it. Many of such epi- 
 grams were probably written upon merely imaginary 
 persons : 
 
 A NEW USE OP A HUMAN FACE. 
 Attributed to the Emperor Trajan : the translation old. 
 
 " "With nose so long and mouth so wide, 
 And those twelve grinders side by side, 
 Dick, with a very little trial, 
 Would make an excellent sun-dial." 
 
 Some of the critics are greatly delighted to find that 
 in this epigram the Emperor's knowledge of Greek was 
 not such as to prevent him committing a false quantity. 
 
 A COUNTERPART TO NARCISSUS. 
 
 By Lucillius : translated by Cowper. 
 u Beware, my friend ! of crystal brook 
 Or fountain, lest that hideous hook, 
 Thy nose, thou chance to see ; 
 Narcissus' fate would then be thine, 
 And self-detested thou wouldst pine, 
 As self-enamoured he."
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 181 
 
 LONG AND SHORT. 
 Anonymous : translated by Merivale. 
 
 " Dick cannot blow his nose whene'er he pleases, 
 
 His nose BO long is, and his arm so short ; 
 Nor ever cries, God bless me ! when he sneezes 
 He cannot hear so distant a report." 
 
 A variety of trades and professions have been tradi- 
 tional objects of ridicule. Schoolmasters and professors 
 come in for their share. 
 
 ON A SCHOOLMASTER WHO HAD A GAY WIFE. 
 By Lucillius. 
 
 " You in your school for ever flog and flay us, 
 Teaching what Paris did to Menelaus ; 
 But all the while, within your private dwelling, 
 There's many a Paris courting of your Helen." 
 
 ON A PROFESSOR WHO HAD A SMALL CLASS. 
 
 " Hail, Aristides, Rhetoric's great professor ! 
 Of wondrous words we own thee the possessor. 
 Hail ye, his pupils seven, that mutely hear him 
 His room's four walls, and the three benches near him ! " 
 
 This that follows is on Cadmus, without whom there 
 might have been no grammar and little rhetoric. It 
 is said to be by Zeno not the philosopher, we pre- 
 sume. We give first a translation by Wellesley : 
 
 " Take it not ill that Cadmus, Phoonician though he be, 
 Can say that Greece was taught by him to write her A, 
 B, C." 
 
 This is good ; but even " English readers" may know 
 that A, I>, C, is not the right name of the Greek alpha- 
 bet. Let us respectfully propose a slight change :
 
 182 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " Cadmus am I: then grudge me not the boast, that, though 
 
 I am a 
 Phoenician born, I taught you Greeks your Alpha, Beta, 
 
 Gamma." 
 
 The medical profession as usual comes in for some 
 of those touches which we are ready enough to give or 
 to enjoy when we are not actually in their hands. 
 
 A CONVENIENT PARTNERSHIP. 
 Anonymous. 
 
 " Damon, who plied the Undertaker's trade, 
 With Doctor Crateas an agreement made. 
 What linens Damon from the dead could seize, 
 He to the Doctor sent for bandages ; 
 While the good Doctor, here no promise-breaker, 
 Sent all his patients to the Undertaker." 
 
 GRAMMAR AND MEDICINE. 
 
 By Agathias. 
 
 " A thriving doctor sent his son to school 
 To gain some knowledge, should he prove no fool ; 
 But took him soon away with little warning, 
 On finding out the lesson he was learning 
 How great Pelides' wrath, in Homer's rhyme, 
 Sent many souls to Hades ere their time. 
 ' No need for this my boy should hither come ; 
 That lesson he can better learn at home 
 For I myself, now, I make bold to say, \ 
 
 Send many souls to Hades ere their day, 
 Nor e'er find want of Grammar stop my way.' " ) 
 
 Musical attempts, when unsuccessful, are a fruitful 
 and fair subject of ridicule. The following is by 
 Nicarchus :
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 183 
 
 *' Men die when the night raven sings or cries : 
 But when Dick sings, e'en the night raven dies." 
 
 COMPENSATION. 
 By Leonidas. 
 
 K The harper Simylus, the whole night through, 
 Harped till his music all the neighbours slew : 
 All but deaf Origen, for whose dull ears 
 Nature atoned by giving length of years." 
 
 THE MUSICAL DOCTOR. 
 
 By Aminian : the translation altered from "Wellesley. 
 " Nicias, a doctor and musician, 
 Lies under very foul suspicion. 
 He sings, and without any shame 
 
 He murders all the finest music : 
 Does he prescribe ? our fate's the same, 
 If he shall e'er find me or you sick." 
 
 Unsuccessful painters, too, are sneered at. This is 
 by Lucillius : 
 
 " Eutychus many portraits made, and many sons begot ; 
 But, strange to say ! none ever saw a likeness in the lot." 
 
 Compliments to the fair sex are often paid by the 
 epigrammatists in a manner at once witty and graceful. 
 
 We have seen how Sappho was described as a tenth 
 M use ; but this epigram by an unknown author goes 
 further. The translation is old and anonymous, 
 though borrowed apparently from one by Swift, 
 on which it has improved. It has been slightly 
 altered :
 
 184 T1IK GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " The world must now two Venus's adore ; 
 Ten are the Muses, and the Graces four. 
 Such Dora's wit, so fair her form and face, 
 She's a new Muse, a Venus, and a Grace." 
 
 "We find an adaptation of this to an accomplished 
 Cornish lady, in an old magazine : 
 
 " Now the Graces are four and the Venus's two, 
 
 And ten is the number of Muses ; 
 For a Muse and a Grace and a Venus are you, 
 My dear little Molly Trefusis." 
 
 Finally, we have another edition of this idea with 
 a bit of satire at the end, which has been maliciously 
 added by the translator : 
 
 " Of Graces four, of Muses ten, 
 
 Of Venus's now two are seen ; 
 Doris shines forth to dazzled men, 
 
 A Grace, a Muse, and Beauty's Queen ; 
 But let me whisper one thing more ; 
 The Furies now are likewise four." 
 
 The faults and foibles of women, springing often 
 so naturally from their innate wish to please, have not 
 escaped such of the epigrammatists as were inclined to 
 satire, and some of them are bitter enough. The first 
 we give must have been occasioned by some irritating 
 disappointment, or have sprung from an unworthy 
 opinion of the sex. It is by our friend Palladas : 
 
 " All wives are plagues ; yet two blest times have they, 
 Their bridal first, and then their burial day." 
 
 The others we give are less sweeping, and more
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 185 
 
 directed against individual failings, particularly the 
 desire to appear more beautiful or more youthful than 
 the facts warranted. This is by Lucillius : 
 
 " Chloe, those locks of raven hair, 
 
 Some people say you dye them black ; 
 But that's a libel, I can swear, 
 
 For I know where you buy them black." 
 
 Our next deals with a very systematic dyer and 
 getter-up of artificial juvenility, who seems to have 
 been her own Madame Rachel. The Greek is 
 Ltician's, and the translation by Merivale. There is 
 also one by Cowper, which will be found among his 
 works : 
 
 " Yes, you may dye your hair, but not your age, 
 Nor smooth, alas ! the wrinkles of your face : 
 
 Yes, you may varnish o'er the tell-tale page, 
 And wear a mask for every vanished grace. 
 
 But there's an end. No Hecuba, by aid 
 
 Of rouge and ceruse, is a Helen made." 
 
 The inactive habits of most of the Greek women 
 are thought to have created a temptation to the use 
 of these artificial modes of heightening the complexion, 
 which would have been better effected by the natural 
 pigments laid on by fresh air and exercise. 
 
 This is upon an old woman wishing to be married at 
 rather an advanced period of life, by N. icarchus : 
 
 " Niconoe has doubtless reached her prime : 
 Yes, for she did so in Deucalion's time. 
 We don't know as to that, but think her doom 
 Less fitted for u husband than a tomb."
 
 186 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 This also is upon an old, or at least a plain woman, 
 by Lucillius : 
 
 " Gellia, your mirror's false ; you could not bear, 
 If it were true, to see your image there." 
 
 ON A WOMAN SCORNFUL IN YOUTH PLAYING THE 
 COQUETTE WHEN OLD. 
 
 By Rufinus. 
 
 " You now salute me graciously, when gone 
 Your beauty's power, that once like marble shone ; 
 You now look sweet, though forced to hide away 
 Those locks that o'er your proud neck used to stray. 
 Vain are your arts : your faded charms I scorn ; 
 The rose now past, I care not for the thorn." 
 
 UPON A LADY'S COY, RELUCTANT, "UNAMOROUS" DELAY. 
 
 By Rufinus. 
 
 " How long, hard Prodice, am I to kneel, 
 And pray and whine, to move that breast of steel ? 
 You e'en are getting grey, as much as I am ; 
 We soon shall be just Hecuba and Priam.* 
 
 Deafness is an infirmity which is a proper object, 
 not of ridicule, but of pity ; but then the deaf person 
 should not pretend to hear when he or she cannot, as 
 was the case with the old lady now to be noticed : 
 
 ON A DEAF HOUSEKEEPER. 
 (Paraphrased.) 
 
 " Of all life's plagues I recommend to no man 
 To hire as a domestic a deaf woman. 
 I've got one who my orders does not hear, 
 Mishears them rather, and keeps blundering near.
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 187 
 
 Thirsty and hot, I asked her for a drink ; 
 She bustled out, and brought me back some ink, 
 Eating a good rump-steak, I called for mustard ; 
 Away she went, and whipped me up a custard. 
 I wanted with my chicken to have ham ; 
 Blundering once more, she brought a pot of jam. 
 I wished in season for a cut of salmon., 
 And what she bought me was a huge fat gammon. 
 I can't my voice raise higher and still higher, 
 As if I were a herald or town-crier. 
 'Twould better be if she were deaf outright ; 
 But anyhow she quits my house this night." 
 
 Those ladies generally, of course, such as were 
 advanced in life who unblushingly betook themselves 
 to the bottle, are an inevitable subject of satire. It 
 has already been mentioned that even men were 
 considered intemperate who drunk wine without a large 
 admixture of water ; but apparently the female topers, 
 having once broken bounds, took their wine un- 
 mixed. 
 
 EPITAPH ON MARONIS. 
 
 " This rudely sculptured Cup will show 
 Where grey Maronis lies below. 
 She talked, and drank strong unmixed stuff, 
 Both of them more than quantum suff. 
 She does not for her children grieve, 
 Nor their poor father grudge to leave ; 
 It only vexes her to think 
 This drinking-cup's not filled with drink." 
 
 The last couplet might be more literally translated 
 thus : 
 
 " But in the grave she scarcely can lie still, 
 
 To think, what Bacchus owns, she can't with Bacchus fill."
 
 188 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Love is sometimes treated of in a vein of pleasantry, 
 very different from the deep and impassioned tone 
 in which it is exhibited in more serious compositions. 
 Take some examples : 
 
 Is A BLACK WOMAN ONE OP THE FAIR SEX ? 
 By Meleager. 
 
 " By Didyma's beauty I'm carried away ; 
 I melt, when I see it, like wax before fire : 
 She is black, it is true : so are coals ; but even they, 
 When they're warmed, a bright glow like the rose-cup 
 acquire." 
 
 This is by Archias, Cicero's friend and client, 
 written perhaps to illustrate some piece of art : 
 
 " What ! fly from love ? vain hope : there's no retreat, 
 When he has wings and I have only feet." 
 
 This is by Crates, translated by Sayers, Southey's 
 friend : 
 
 CURES FOR LOVE. 
 
 " Hunger, perhaps, may cure your love, 
 Or time your passion greatly alter : 
 If both should unsuccessful prove, 
 I strongly recommend a halter." 
 
 VENUS AND THE MUSES. 
 
 By some said to be Plato's. 
 
 " To the Muses said Venus : ' Maids, mind what you do ; 
 Honour me, or I'll set my boy Cupid on you.' 
 Then to Venus the Muses : ' To Mars chatter thus : 
 Your urchin ne'er ventures to tly upon us.' "
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 189 
 
 The light and cheerful way in which poor men 
 speak of their poverty is often pleasant. Here are 
 some examples : 
 
 WANT A GOOD WATCH-DOG. 
 By Julian : the translation by Wellesley. 
 
 . u Seek a more profitable job, 
 
 Good housebreakers, elsewhere : 
 These premises you cannot rob, 
 Want guards them with such care." 
 
 THE POOR SCHOLAR'S ADMONITION TO THE MICE. 
 By Aristo. 
 
 " mice ! if here you come for food, you'd better go else- 
 where, 
 
 For in this cabin, small and rude, you'll find but slender 
 fare. 
 
 Go where you'll meet with good fat cheese, and sweet dried 
 figs in plenty, 
 
 Where even the scraps will yield with ease a banquet rich 
 and dainty: 
 
 If to devour my books you come, you'll rue it, without 
 question, 
 
 And find them all, as I find some, of very hard digestion." 
 
 The folly of fools is a fair subject of ridicule. This 
 is by Lucian: 
 
 "A blockhead bit by fleas put out the light, 
 And chuckling cried, Now you can't see to bite." 
 
 Here is something which the Greeks considered folly, 
 by Lucian: 
 
 " While others tippled, Sam from drinking shrunk, 
 Which made the rest think Sam alone was drunk."
 
 190 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Without recommending excess, there are a good many 
 invitations to jollity. Here is one : 
 
 M Sober Eubulus, friends, lies here below : 
 So then, let's drink : to Hades all must go." 
 
 What follows is a favourite sentiment perhaps too 
 much so with the old poets : 
 
 " Wine to the poet is a winged steed ; 
 Those who drink water come but little speed." 
 
 One great poet has existed in our day who was a signal 
 exception to this alleged rule. 
 
 The following is by the Emperor Julian, and refers 
 to that substitute for wine which the Germans dis- 
 covered by fermenting, or, as Tacitus calls it, corrupt- 
 ing, grain. It does not seem to have pleased the 
 imperial wine-drinker. The translation is necessarily 
 paraphrastic : 
 
 " Who ? whence this, Bacchus 1 for by Bacchus' self, 
 The son of Jove, I know not this strange elf. 
 The other smells like nectar : but thou here 
 Like the he-goat. Those wretched Kelts, I fear, 
 For want of grapes made thee of ears of corn. 
 Demetrius art thou, of Demeter born, 
 Not Bacchus, Dionysus, nor yet wine 
 Those names but fit the products of the vine ; 
 BEER thou mayst be from Barley ; or, that failing, 
 We'll call thee ALE, for thou wilt keep us ailing." 
 
 A bath to the Greeks, as we might expect at least, in 
 their later development was a great enjoyment, if no$ 
 a necessity of life. The epigrammatists supply us with 
 many pleasant and playful inscriptions for ba^hs or
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 191 
 
 bathing-places, illustrating their virtues and attractions. 
 The purity and freshness of the water are natural themes 
 of eulogium, and the patronage of divine beings is 
 readily supposed. Here is a selection, all of them 
 apparently anonymous : 
 
 " This bath may boast the Graces' own to be, 
 And for that reason it holds only three." 
 
 " Here bathed the Graces, and at leaving gave 
 Their choicest splendours to requite the wave." 
 
 Or thus, which we may suppose written of the draped 
 Graces : 
 
 " Here bathed the Graces, and, by way of payment, 
 Left half their charms when they resumed their raiment." 
 
 " Here Venus bathed, ere she to Paris' eyes 
 Displayed the immortal form that gained the prize." 
 
 Or thus : 
 
 " Straight from this bath went Venus, wet and dripping ; 
 To Paris showed herself and won the pippin." 
 
 u Either these waves gave Venus birth, or she, 
 Her form here bathing, made them what we see." 
 
 ON A SMALL-SIZED BATH. 
 
 u Blame not things little : Grace may on them wait. 
 Cupid is little ; but his godhead's great." 
 
 We are warned, however, that excess in the use of 
 the warm bath, as in other indulgences, may be injuri- 
 ous :
 
 192 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 a Wine and the bath, and lawless love for ladies, 
 Just send us quicker down the hill to Hades." 
 
 Some vices are particularly obnoxious to the satirical- 
 epigrammatist, especially avarice and envy : 
 
 STINGINESS IN HOSPITALITY. 
 By Pallas : translation altered from Wellesley. 
 
 " Most people dine but once, but when we've dined 
 
 With our friend Salaminus, 
 We dine again at home, for faith ! we find 
 He did not truly dine us." 
 
 BOARD OR LODGING. 
 
 By Lucillius : translation altered from Cowper. 
 " Asclepiades, the Miser, in his house 
 Espied one day, with some surprise, a mouse : 
 ' Tell me, dear mouse,' he cried, ' to what cause is it 
 I owe this pleasant but unlooked-for visit ?' 
 The mouse said, smiling : ' Fear not for your hoard : 
 I come, my friend, to lodge, and not to board.' " 
 
 There are several vigorous denunciations of the vice 
 of envy. This is anonymous : 
 
 " Envy is vile, but plays a useful part, 
 Torturing in envious men both eyes and heart." 
 
 This is in that exaggerated style which the epigrams 
 sometimes exhibit. It is by Lucillius the transla- 
 tion from "Wellesley : 
 
 " Poor Diophon of envy died, 
 
 His brother thief to see 
 Nailed near him, to be crucified, 
 Upon a higher tree."
 
 WITTY AXI> SATIRICAL. 193 
 
 lint the host epigram on this subject is to bo found in 
 0110 which seems to describe a picture of Mom us the 
 fault-finder, the impersonation of Envy, perhaps also, 
 some will say, of Criticism, the Power who could 
 produce nothing excellent himself, and who never saw 
 unmixed excellence in the works of others. The pic- 
 ture is supposed to have been by Apt-lies. The epi- 
 gram is anonymous; the translation partly from Hay: 
 
 u Who here has formed, with faultless hand and skill, 
 Fault-finding Momus, source of endless ill? 
 On the bare earth his aged limits are thrown, 
 As if in life, to lie and sigh and groan. 
 His frame is wasted, and Ids scanty hairs 
 One trembling Land from his thin temple tears: 
 With his old stall' the other strikes the ground, 
 Which all insensate to the blo\vs is found. 
 In double row his gnashing teeth declare 
 How much his neighbour's weal o'envhelms him with 
 despair." 
 
 Swift made a well-known epitaph upon Vanbrugh 
 as an architect : 
 
 u Lie heavy on him, earth, for he 
 Laid many a heavy load on thee." 
 
 This is nearly the counterpart of the following Greek 
 epigram : 
 
 " Hail, Mother Earth ! lie light on him 
 
 Wl'ns" tombstone here we see : 
 /Esigfiies. his form was slim, 
 
 And light his weight on thee." 
 
 A similar request is made in another epigram by Am 
 A. o. vol. xx. N
 
 194 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 mianus, but with a very different feeling. The transla- 
 tion is by Merivale : 
 
 " Light lie the earth, Nearchus, on thy clay, 
 That so the dogs may easier find their prey." 
 
 This anonymous epigram is upon a matricide, who 
 does not deserve burial: 
 
 " Bury him not ! no burial is for him : 
 Let hungry dogs devour him limb by limb. 
 Our general Mother, Earth, on her kind breast 
 Will ne'er allow a matricide to rest." 
 
 The satirical epigrammatists indulge often in na- 
 tional invective, and indeed the Greeks were too fond 
 of abusing some of their neighbours. Here are speci- 
 mens : 
 
 " A viper bit a Cappadocian's hide ; 
 But 'twas the viper, not the man, that died." 
 
 The natives of many other countries besides Cappa- 
 docia were called bad : among the rest the Lerians ; 
 thus : 
 
 " Lerians are bad : not some bad, and some not; 
 But all ; there's not a Lerian in the lot, 
 Save Procles, that you could a good man call ; 
 And Procles is a Lerian after all." 
 
 Our readers will here recognise the original of a 
 well-known epigram by Porson, which exists both in a 
 Greek and English shape, and where the satirist, after 
 denouncing the Germans as all ignorant of Greek 
 metres, concludes :
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL. 195 
 
 u All, save only Hermann ; 
 And Hermann's a German." 
 
 It was unfortunate for poor Hermann that his naino 
 and his nationality rhymed so well together. 
 
 An epigram may here be given in conclusion on 
 this head, as tending, perhaps, to illustrate the transi- 
 tion by which the satirical Greek epigram came to 
 resemble the favourite stylo of Martial which has been 
 so much adopted in modern times. 
 
 The epigram we refer to is by Lucillius : 
 
 ON A DECLAMATORY PLEADER. 
 
 " A little pig, an ox, a goat (my only one), I lost, 
 And Menecles, to plead my cause, I fee'd at some small 
 
 cost. 
 I only wanted back my beasts, which seemed my simple 
 
 due ; 
 
 Then, Menecles, what had I with Othryades to do ? 
 I never thought in this affair to charge with any theft 
 The men who, at Thermopylae, their lives and bodies 
 
 left. 
 
 My suit is with Eutycludes ; and if I get decree, 
 Leonidas and Xerxes both are welcome to go free. 
 Plead my true case : lest I cry out (I can't my feelings 
 
 smother), 
 ' The little pig one story tells, and Menecles another.' " 
 
 This satire upon a certain class of lawyers agrees com- 
 pletely with an epigram of Martial's ; and as Lucillius 
 and he lived nearly about the same time, it would be 
 interesting to know if the one was borrowed from the 
 other, and which. The preponderance of evidence rather 
 is that Lucillius, as Lcssing thinks, was a century, or at
 
 196 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 least half a century, later than Martial, and is pro- 
 bably, therefore, the imitator in this matter, though 
 his imitation is not slavish. Martial's epigram has 
 been translated into French by La Monnoye. 
 
 This chapter may be concluded with a mild satire 
 upon the condition of the times, with reference to the 
 two ancient worthies, Heraclitus and Democritus, the 
 weeping and the laughing philosopher. The transla- 
 tion is mainly from Prior: 
 
 " Sad Heraclitus, with thy tears retiirn; 
 Life more than ever gives us cause to mourn. 
 Democritus, dear droll, revisit earth : 
 Life more than ever gives us cause for mirth. 
 Between you both I stand in thoughtful pother, 
 How I should weep with one, how laugh with t'other."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 THE concluding chapter of our volume will consist of 
 Narrative epigrams ajid some others of a miscellaneous 
 kind, not easily reducible to other heads. Ko syste- 
 matic order can well be observed in a congeries of this 
 kind ; but it may begin with those that are shortest 
 and simplest. 
 
 The first that occurs is well known as a curiosity, 
 and as an exercise lor translators in the power of con- 
 densation and equipoise. The original consists of two 
 lines, and any expansion of it must be looked on as 
 an evasion of the difficulty. 
 
 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 " One finding gold, left there a rope ; but he who in the 
 
 ground 
 Had left the gold, not finding it, put on the rope he found." 
 
 The above epigram is said to be by Plato, but not 
 probably the philosopher. The next is attributed to 
 Antiphilus : 
 
 "Deficient one in limbs, and one in eyes, 
 Each with the other's help his want supplies
 
 ',98 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 The blind man lifts the lame man on his back, 
 And by the other's words directs his track. 
 Wholesome necessity this lesson taught, 
 By mutual pity, mutual aid was brought." 
 
 This shorter one, on the same subject, bears the 
 name of Plato the younger : 
 
 " The blind man bears the lame, and onward hies, 
 Made right by lending leet and borrowing eyes." 
 
 The next that comes has always been a favourite, and 
 has been translated by several modern Latin poets. 
 The original is anonymous : 
 
 " Young, I was poor ; now rich in my old age, 
 My lot each way your pity may engage. 
 Wealth, when I could enjoy it, I had none ; 
 Now that I have it, the enjoyment's gone." 
 
 To which an Englishman has ventured on this reply : 
 
 " Come, friend ; methinks your fate in either season, 
 For such complaints affords but slender reason. 
 Youth, when with vigour joined, requires no wealth ; 
 It finds its happiness in hope and health : 
 While age, tho' torpid, has the power to take 
 Pleasure in money for its own mere sake ; 
 Or if a nobler feeling warms the breast, 
 Is happy thereby to make others blest." 
 
 The next is given as an example of what the Greeks 
 called storyk, or parental affection in the animal world. 
 The original is by Alpheus. The version is partly from 
 Hay and partly from Sir A. Croke, in Wellusley : 
 
 " Covered with wintry snows, around her young, 
 With sheltering wings, a fond hen-mother clung,
 
 NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS. 199 
 
 Till by heaven's frosts she perished ; to the last 
 Struggling against the skies and bitter blast. 
 Progne, Medea, ye were mothers too ; 
 In Hades blush to learn what birds can do." 
 
 This that follows is a story by Anyte upon three 
 Milesian ladies, who, when their city was invaded by 
 the Gauls, escaped by self-destruction from the insults 
 ottered to them; the translation by Men vale: 
 
 " Then let us hence, Miletus dear ; sweet native land, fare- 
 well ; 
 Th' insulting wrongs of lawless Gauls we fear, whilst here 
 
 we dwell. 
 
 Three virgins of Milesian race, to this dire fate compell'd 
 By Celtic Mars yet glad we die, that we have ne'er beheld 
 'Spousal s of blood, nor sunk to bo vile hand maids to our foes, 
 But rather owe our thanks to Death, kind healer of our 
 woes." 
 
 There are two epigrams on a child being saved from 
 destruction by its mother's presence of mind. We 
 give one of these, by Parmenio : 
 
 " Her child once leaning o'er the extreme roof 
 Of a high house (children are free from fear), 
 Its mother bared her breast, yet kept aloof, 
 And made her child to its loved haunt, draw near : 
 Thus did the milky fount, in that blest hour 
 Oi' giving life, exert a double power." 
 
 There is another epigram on this subject, but it is 
 innecessary to insert it, as the main idea is the ^jime, 
 and it is chiefly distinguished by referring to the fate 
 of Astyanax, the son of Hector, who was thrown by 
 the Greeks from a high place and killed, liogers the
 
 200 THE O REEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 poet lias imitated these epigrams in some well-known 
 lines : 
 
 " While on the cliff with calm delight she kneels, 
 And the blue vales a thousand joys recall, 
 See, to the last, last verge her infant steals! 
 O fly, yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall ! 
 Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare, 
 And the fond boy springs back to nestle there." 
 
 The following story is told of a skilful dive* who 
 did good service to the Greeks during the Persian 
 war by conveying information to them without being 
 detected, and who is said to have approached under 
 water the Persian galleys, when anchored near the Greek 
 coast, and to have cut the cables, so as to expose the 
 vessels to a violent storm. He was employed in these 
 services by Themistocles, to which fact the epigram 
 makes reference : 
 
 u When Xerxes poured on Greece his rabble rout, 
 Skyllus a warfare 'neath the wave found out ; 
 Diving where ships had hoped a safe retreat, 
 He cut the cables of the anchored fleet : 
 Persia and all her crews, thus driven to land, } 
 Staggered, and prostrate lay upon the strand, > 
 The first-fruits of Themistocles' command." ) 
 
 IBYCUS AND THE CRANES. 
 
 " Ibycus, bent the desert to explore, 
 There robbers slew thee, on the lonely shore ; 
 Thy cries brought down a passing flock of cranes, 
 Who came and witnessed thy last dying pains ; 
 And not in vain. A Fury, ire-inflamed, 
 Avenged thy death, which those good birds proclaimed,
 
 NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS. 201 
 
 On Corinth's ground. By greed of lucre driven, 
 Yc robbers, fear ye not the wrath of Heaven ? 
 JSgysthus, when he doomed a Bard to die, 
 Did not escape the black-robed Fury's eye." 
 
 The story just given is well known, from its being the 
 subject of a poem of Schiller's. The last couplet alludes 
 to an act of /Egysthus in putting to death a bard, a 
 friend of Agamemnon's, who was observing and en- 
 deavouring to restrain Clytemnestra's conduct. 
 
 Here is a rather marvellous story of a crow ; but it 
 appears to have the authority of Pliny in its favour. 
 It is by Bianor : 
 
 " The bird of Phoebus, parched with thirst's dire pain, 
 A housewife's pitcher spied, for catching rain : 
 He perched, loud croaking, on the brim, but no, 
 Too short his beak, the water much too low ! 
 Thy power then, Phcebus, in the bird inspired 
 An artifice to gain what he desired : 
 With gathered pebbles, quickly to the brink 
 He raised the water's level, and could drink." 
 
 THE DRAUGHT-OX. 
 By Addceus. 
 
 " The old draught-ox, worn in the furrowed field, 
 Alcon to ruthless slaughter would not yield, 
 His toils revering : in deep pasture now 
 He lows, and feels his freedom from the plough." 
 
 It was a religious scruple with the ancient Greeks 
 not to sacrifice a plough-ox. 
 
 The story that follows for it is a story, though it 
 concludes with a precept is an illustration of that 
 power of Nemesis which has been referred to in
 
 202 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 another part of this volume, and it is directed against 
 the presumptuoustiess of doing what is sometimes called 
 fore-speaking Providence : 
 
 " My gallant ship now nears my nati ve shore ; 
 To-morrow ! and her stormy course is o'er. 
 To-morrow ! when my lips these words had said, 
 A sea like Hades, raving o'er my head, 
 Engulphed me ; and destruction round me clung, 
 For this vain vaunting of a froward tongue. 
 Say not to-morrow; the tongue's slightest ylip 
 Nemesis watches, ere it pass the lip." 
 
 The epigram is by Antiphilus, the translation by Hay, 
 
 slightly altered. 
 
 A wayside nut-tree here complains of the school- 
 boys. It is by Antipater, or, as some say, Piato : 
 
 " A roadside nut-tree planted, here I stand, 
 A mark for every passing schoolboy's hand ; 
 My houghs and nourishing twigs all broke or bent 
 Wounded by many a missile at me sent. 
 What boots it now that trees should fruitful be 1 
 My very fruit brings this disgrace on .me I" 
 
 The next is rather an old-fashioned, story, told of 
 Pittacus, one of the Seven sages : 
 
 "An Atarncan stranger once to Pittacus applied, 
 
 That ancient sage, Hyrradius' son, and Mitylene's pride : 
 
 ' Grave sir, betwixt two marriages I now have power to 
 
 choose, 
 And hope you will advise me which to take and which 
 
 refuse. 
 
 One of the maidens, every way, is very near myself ; 
 The other's far above me, both in pedigree and pel
 
 NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS. 203 
 
 Now which is best ?' The old man raised the staff which 
 
 old men bear, 
 And with it pointed to some boys that then were playing 
 
 there, 
 Whipping their tops along the street : ' Their steps,' he 
 
 said, ' pursue, 
 
 Arid look, and listen carefully ; they'll tell you what to do.' 
 Following theni, the stranger went to see what might befall, 
 And 'Whip the top that's nearest you!' was still their 
 
 constant call. 
 He, by this boyish lesson taught, resigned the high-bom 
 
 dame, 
 And wed the maiden ' nearest him.' Go thou and do the 
 
 same !" 
 
 The story that follows is of a he-goat, but it is 
 connected with circumstances of a curious and interest- 
 ing kind. It is made the vehicle of recording the 
 religious custom by which the Goat, from its habit of 
 devouring the brandies of the vine, was held obnoxi- 
 ous to Bacchus, and sacrificed to him accordingly. It 
 may be mentioned that the word Tragedy means 
 literally a goat-song, such as was sung or repeated at 
 these sacrifices to Bacchus. The epigram is by Leoni- 
 das of Tarentum, but it seems to have been imitated or 
 abridged by Evenus, of whose composition a single 
 couplet only remains. Leonidas's epigram may be thus 
 translated : 
 
 " The she-goat's bounding and well-bearded spouse, 
 On the vine's tender shoots intent to browse, 
 A Voice from earth addressed ' Vile wretch, devour 
 Our fruitful twi^s, for short-lived is your power ! 
 This firm root soon will nectar yield again, 
 To pour on you, he-goat, when at the, altar slain.' "
 
 204 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 The couplet preserved of Evenus's composition, and 
 which Ovid copied, may be turned into this quatrain: 
 
 " Though you should gnaw me to the root, 
 
 Yet, he-goat, to the altar led, 
 You'll find I've borne enough of fruit 
 To pour on your devoted head." 
 
 This composition attained in the reign of Domitian 
 a celebrity and importance worth recording. That 
 emperor, whose character exhibited a strange mixture 
 of good and evil, explicable only on the supposition of 
 his insanity, issued an edict to prohibit the cultivation 
 of vineyards at least, without an imperial licence. He 
 seems to have thought that vine-culture interfered with 
 the cultivation of corn, and may have wished to 
 obviate mischief produced among some of his soldiers 
 by intemperance. But the wine-growers naturally 
 were indignant ; and being no doubt as much alive to 
 their own interests as the licensed victuallers of the 
 present day, they set themselves to procure the recall of 
 the edict, which they effected partly by the dissemina- 
 tion of what Mr Merivale calls an ominous parody on 
 this epigram, in which the name of Caesar was substi- 
 tuted for that of he-goat. Domitian probably was 
 superstitious enough to think that by destroying the 
 vines he was becoming, like the he-goat, obnoxious to 
 Bacchus, and might fall a sacrifice to the god's dis- 
 pleasure or to the resentment of his votaries, of which 
 there were not wanting examples in mythological 
 history. 
 
 Here are two deathbed scenes, expressed, we think, 
 with a touching degree of pathos :
 
 NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS. 205 
 
 " These her last words the weeping Gorgo said, 
 As round her mother's neck her hands she laid: 
 ' Stay witli my lather, and a daughter bear, 
 Who may, with happier fate, of thy grey age have care.' " 
 
 u Holding her father in a last embrace, 
 Erato spoke, while tears bedewed her face : 
 ' Father, I am no more ; death clouds my eye 
 Even now, with its black shadow, while I die.'" 
 
 The following, by Palladas, gives a striking picture 
 of a heathen's views of Divine Providence, for the 
 author is thought not to have been a Christian, or if 
 lie was, he may have written the verses in a heathen 
 character. Sarapis, or, as it is sometimes written, 
 .Serapis, was, as wo are told, an Egyptian divinity, 
 whose worship was introduced into Greece in the time 
 of the Ptolemys. He was h-ld in great veneration at 
 Alexandria, to which place Palladas belonged, and it 
 has been said that this is the name given to Apis after 
 his death and deification. Scrapis corresponds to the 
 Greek Jupiter and Pluto united, and his image is often 
 to be seen on works of art, with the peculiar attribute 
 of a modius or corn-measure on his head. The version 
 is Hay's, slightly altered : 
 
 " Serapis to a murderer, they say, 
 ( 'ame in a vision, while asleep he lay, 
 Near a frail wall, and thus his dictate ran : 
 'Up, go, sleep elsewhere, tliou most wn-t<-hed man !' 
 He, startled, changed his place, when, hark ! that sound : 
 With sudden crash the wall comes to the ground. 
 With joy the wivtch an oH'cring soon provides, 
 Thinking the god is pleased with homicides.
 
 206 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 But now again that voice is heard by night : 
 ' Think'st thou that I in men like thee delight ? 
 I saved thee once it was a painless fate ^ 
 
 Averted but know this, my righteous hate 
 Keserved thee for the cross, whose pangs thy- crimes ( 
 await.'" ) 
 
 Here are two mutually contrasted stories, showing 
 the return made by the gods for the opposite qualities 
 of humane compassion and contemptuous insensibility 
 in reference to the dead. It should be explained that 
 it was thought by the ancients a stringent duty to 
 bury the dead, or any part of a dead body left without 
 sepulture. We may remember, also, that to " bury the 
 dead" is one of the seven Corporal mercies of the 
 Christian Church : 
 
 u A dead man's skull, cast on the public road, 
 A traveller saw, nor sign of pity showed ; 
 Lifting a stone, he threw it at the head, 
 Nor feared for retribution from the dead. 
 But, back rebounding from the bone, its flight 
 Quenched the unfeeling jester's power of sight. 
 Hereafter, too, he'll feel it, and lament 
 The foolish skill that such a missile sent." 
 
 The author of the companion story is Carphyllides, 
 and the version we give is Mr Hay's : 
 
 " While from the strand his line a fisher threw, 
 Shoreward a shipwrecked human head he drew. 
 His moistened eyes soft drops of pity shed, 
 While gazing on the bald and trim kl ess head. 
 No spade he had ; but while his active hands 
 Scraped a small grave among the yielding sands, 
 A store of gold, there hid, he found. Yes ! yes ! 
 Heaven will the just man's pious actions bless."
 
 NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS. 207 
 
 The next story to be given is a very celebrated one. 
 It is by Calliinacbus, expressed with his usual brevity 
 and elegance. It is mentioned by Cicero, and trans- 
 lated by him from a text somewhat different, appar- 
 ently, from what we possess. Two translations shall bo 
 given to help the illustration of it. The first is rather 
 more literal than the second, which is by Mr Burgon, 
 and given in Dr Wellesley's book : 
 
 " Cleombrotus, the Ambraciote, having said 
 
 ' Thou sun, farewell ! ' leapt down among the dead 
 From the high wall : no sorrow had he known, 
 Nor was there cause for death, save this alone 
 Plato upon the Soul, the ardent youth had read." 
 
 "< Farewell, thou sun !' Cleombrotus, the hold Ambraciote, 
 
 cried, 
 And hurled himself, impetuous, from the lofty rampart's 
 
 side ; 
 Yet nought there was on all the earth to urge him to the 
 
 deed, 
 Save Plato's matchless ' Phscdon,' which 'twas known he 
 
 loved to read." 
 
 The motive of this act has been the subject of 
 speculation whether it was curiosity, or perplexity, or 
 a sense of the comparative vanity of earthly things. 
 The quality of the act, too, was discussed among the 
 Fathers of the Church, and different opinions ex- 
 pressed. In a ludicrous epigram by Agathias upon a 
 Sophist who was questioned as to the nature of the 
 soul, and who answered in very vague terms, the 
 conclusion of his answer is :
 
 208 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 " If more you wish to learn, to Hades go, 
 And there as much as Plato soon you'll know. 
 Or if you choose, ascend the rampart's height, 
 Mimic Cleombrotus, and plunge to-night : 
 The soul, thus without body left alone, \ 
 
 May have the truth it seeks for clearly shown, > 
 If there's indeed a soul, to know, or to be known." ) 
 
 WHAT WORDS HECTOR WOULD HAVE SAID IF STRUCK 
 BY THE GREEKS AFTER HE WAS DEAD. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 "Wound now my lifeless form ; ev'n hares exult 
 O'er the fall'n lion, and his corse insult." 
 
 Instead of a story we may give here a supposed ad- 
 dress of Troy to Minerva ou the goddess deserting her, 
 by Agathias : 
 
 "Guardian of Troy relent : I thee adore 
 Still in my misery as I did before. 
 But thou hast given me to the foe a prey : 
 All for an apple, must my bliss give way ! 
 The Shepherd's death might have sufficed : if He 
 Unjustly judged, yet Troy from blame was free." 
 
 As a counterpart of this epigram, another shall be 
 given, ascribed to the Emperor Hadrian, upon the 
 resuscitation of Troy under the Eoman power. Tho 
 translation is by Goldwiu Smith : 
 
 " Hector, brave heart, if still thy spirit hears, 
 list, and stay awhile thy patriot tears ! 
 Troy stands a noble city ; and in war 
 Her sons, though weak to thee, still valiant are. 
 The Myrmidons are gone. To Achilles say, 
 Eneas' offspring all Thessalia sway." 
 
 As a further form of retribution against Greece may
 
 NARRATIVE AND MISCELLANEOUS. 209 
 
 be given the lament for the destruction of Corinth by 
 the Eomans, the supposed descendants of Troy. The 
 epigram is by Antipater, the translation by Welle.s- 
 ley : 
 
 " Where are thy splendours, Dorian Corinth, where 
 Thy crested turrets, thy ancestral goods, 
 
 The temples of the blest, the dwellings fair, 
 The high-born dames, the myriad multitudes ? 
 
 There's not a trace of thee, sad doomed one, left, 
 
 By rav'ning war at once of all bereft. 
 
 We, the sad Nereids, offspring of the surge, 
 
 Alone are spared to chant thy halcyon dirge." 
 
 We give another on the same subject by Polystratus, 
 translated by Charles Merivale, as more clearly bring- 
 ing out the supposed retribution to which we have 
 referred. The destruction of Corinth by Mummius 
 was a signally important event both to Greece and 
 Rome. It reduced that profligate city to desolation 
 for a century and a half, though in St Paul's time her 
 prosperity as well as her profligacy had revived. But in 
 reference to Eome, the taking of Corinth led to the 
 introduction of that taste for Art of which the Eomans 
 had previously been destitute. Mummius was so igno- 
 rant of the very conception of excellence in Art that 
 the main precaution he took in having pictures and 
 statues conveyed to Eome was to stipulate that in the 
 case of their injury or destruction, the parties in- 
 trusted with them should replace them with new ones. 
 
 " Achncan Acrocorinth, the bright star 
 Of Hellas, with its narrow Lsthinian bound, 
 Lucius o'ercame, in one enormous mound 
 Piling the dead, conspicuous from afar. 
 A. c. vol. xx. o
 
 210 THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 Thus, to the Greeks denying funeral fires, 
 Have great vEneas' later progeny 
 Performed high Jove's retributive decree, 
 
 And well avenged the city of their sires !" 
 
 The next that we give is a kind of story, embodied 
 in the song of the Cretan warrior bearing the name 
 of Hybrias. There are many good translations of this 
 piece, but we prefer to give the version by Leyden, 
 which we think deserves to be rescued from tho obli- 
 vion with which it has been threatened : 
 
 " My spear, my sword, my shaggy shield ! 
 
 With these I till, with these I sow ; 
 With these I reap my harvest field, 
 
 No other wealth the gods bestow : 
 With these I plant the fertile vine ; 
 With these I press the luscious wine. . 
 
 My spear, my sword, my shaggy shield ! 
 
 They make me lord of all below, 
 For those who dread my spear to wield, 
 
 Before my shaggy shield must bow. 
 Their fields, their vineyards, they resign, 
 And all that cowards have is mine." 
 
 The chapter and the volume may be concluded with 
 the anonymous motto which more than one adventurer 
 is said to have adopted at the conclusion of their 
 story : 
 
 " Fortune and Hope, farewell ! I've gained the port ; 
 You've fooled me long make others now your sport."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 SOME PRINCIPAL DATES CONNECTED WITH THE ANTHO- 
 LOGIES, AND THE ERAS OF SOME OF THE POETS 
 WHOSE EPIGRAMS ARE INSERTED IN THEM. 
 
 Melcager's Garland, compiled in the end of the second 
 century B.C. 
 
 Philippus's Collection, made about the end of the second 
 century A.D. 
 
 In each of these collections, lists of the poets are given 
 wlio.se epigrams are contained in them ; and by this nu-ans 
 an approximation can be made to the dates at which they 
 llourished. 
 
 Agathias's Collection, made in the sixth century A.D. 
 
 Eras of some of the more remarkable foets : 
 
 B.C. 
 
 Archiloclms, ... 687 
 Sajiplio, about . . . 611 
 
 o- i f 5o'i /'. 
 
 Simomdes, . . . } 4( ._ ^ 
 
 Leon Idas of Tarentum, . Middle of 3d century B.C. 
 
 ('allimarluis, abcut . 256 
 
 Antipater of Sidou, . . 127 
 
 Meleager, .... 95 
 
 Nossis, 1 3d century B.C., but consid- 
 
 Anyte (?) > . . . erable uncertainty attending 
 
 Eriijua (I) ) two of these poetesses. 
 
 THE END.
 
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