kings of Macedon, and with the tyrants of Thessaly, Syracuse, and African Cyrene. He sings of Egina, Corinth, Argos, and the various cities of Sicily. His heroes hail from all parts of the Hellenic domains, and win their laurels in those great centres of national unity, the sacred seats of Pythian Apollo, Isthmian Poseidon, Nemean and Olympian Zeus. At Lindos, in the island of Rhodes, the seventh Olympian was set up on the walls of Athene's temple in letters of gold. Especially at Athens was Pindar held in high esteem. Not only did he receive a gift of money, but his statue was erected near the temple of Ares, and he was made Athenian proxenus, or State representative at Thebes. A century after his death, when Alexander the Great destroyed Thebes, the only private house left standing was that of Pindar, and among the few citizens who were spared a life of slavery were the descendants of Pindar. Pindar, like Euripides, was more than a mere citizen of a single State: his Muse and his fame were panhellenic.

On Simonides and Pindar, however, we have no right to dwell, as they will be found treated in separate articles; but a word may be spared for Bacchylides, the nephew and disciple of Simonides, who was numbered by the Greeks among their nine great lyric writers. He too was intimate with Hiero, and most of his poetry was written to grace the refined and luxurious life of a court. Bacchylides followed closely in the steps of his uncle, and was an elegant and finished writer; but his personality and fame are almost lost in those of his more distinguished relative.* He appears to have given a choral character to banqueting-songs and songs of love, though the following ode shows how closely he is allied in thought to Anacreon's school:

WHEN the wine-cup freely flows,
Soothing is the mellow force,
Vanquishing the drinker's heart,

Rousing hope on Love's sweet course.

Love with bounteous Bacchus joined

All with proudest thoughts can dower;
Walled towns the drinker scales,

Dreams of universal power.

Ivory and gold enrich his home;
Corn-ships o'er the dazzling sea
Bear him Egypt's untold wealth:
Thus he soars in fancy free.

* A number of complete poems by Bacchylides have recently been discovered, but at the time of writing have not yet been published. Some account of them is given in the London Athenæum for December 26th, 1896, page 907.

But Bacchylides was no optimist. "Tis best for mortals," he cries, "not to have been born, or to look upon the light of the sun. No mortal is happy all his days." In one of the pæans of Bacchylides we have a foretaste of Aristophanes, who in the lyric songs of his 'Peace' dwells upon the same theme.

TO MORTAL men Peace giveth these good things:
Wealth, and the flowers of honey-throated song;
The flame that springs

On carven altars from fat sheep and kine,
Slain to the gods in heaven; and all day long,

Games for glad youths, and flutes, and wreaths, and circling

wine.

Then in the steely shield swart spiders weave

Their web and dusky woof;

Rust to the pointed spear and sword doth cleave;

The brazen trump sounds no alarms;

Nor is sleep harried from our eyes aloof,

But with sweet rest my bosom warms:

The streets are thronged with lovely men and young, And hymns in praise of boys like flames to heaven are flung.

Translation of J. A. Symonds.

Pindar is the last of the great writers whose poetry was exclusively lyric. With the rise of the drama, lyric poetry came to be regarded mainly as the handmaid of tragedy and comedy; and though a few forms, such as the dithyramb, continued to enjoy an independent existence, still these either failed to attract real genius, and so fell into decline, or they suffered from the tendency to magnify the accompaniments of music and dance, and thus lost the virtue of a high poetical tone.

It is however a peculiarity of Greek poetry that none of the earlier forms are completely lost, but are absorbed in the later. When we reach the drama, we find that this splendid creation of Hellenic genius gathers up in one beautiful and harmonious web the various threads of the poetic art.

The drama, as is well known, originated in the songs which were sung in the festivals of Bacchus. Tragedy is literally the goat-ode; that is, the choral song chanted by satyrs, the goat-footed attendants of Bacchus. At first, then, tragedy was of a purely lyric character,— a story in song with expressive dance and musical accompaniment. The further history of tragedy and comedy is, in brief, the development of dialogue and the harmonizing of the lyric and dramatic elements. The greatest impetus was given to dialogue in Attica

through the recitations of Homeric poetry by professional bards. Epic metre, however, was unsuited to dramatic dialogue, which, after essaying the lighter trochaic line, finally adopted the more conversational iambic verse which Archilochus had used so effectively for satire.

Already at the end of the sixth century B. C., the drama presents the twofold character which in Greece it never lost, the chorus and the dialogue, the former due to Dorian lyric poetry, the latter to the Ionic verse-forms of Archilochus. With the full development of dramatic form the lyric was reduced from its supreme position to an inferior station, in which it should no longer be the controlling element, but merely the efficient and beautiful handmaid of dramatic dialogue. In Eschylus the lyric still assumes undue proportions; in Sophocles the lyric and dramatic are blended in perfect harmony; but in Euripides the work of disintegration has set in, and the lyric tends to become a mere artistic appendage.

or less

All works on Greek literature treat this subject more fully. Flach's 'Geschichte der Griechischen Lyrik' (Tübingen: 1883) is the most complete work on the whole field. Symonds's 'Greek Poets' and Jebb's 'Classical Greek Poetry' are both excellent. The Greek student finds Bergk's 'Poetæ Lyrici Græci' (Leipzig: 1882) indispensable. An attractive and convenient edition of the 'Poetæ Lyrici Græci Minores' is that by Pomtow (Leipzig: 1885). Farnell's 'Greek Lyric Poetry' (Longmans: 1891) is confined to the "melic » writers. The most popular treatment of Greek music will be found in Naumann's History of Music,' edited by Sir F. Gore Ouseley (Cassell & Co.). Chappell's 'History of Music' (London: 1874) is a standard work. Monro's The Modes of Ancient Greek Music' (Clarendon Press: 1894) is intended for the specialist.

It Rushton Fairclough