§ 1. General characteristics. § 2. Simonides. § 3. Pindar. § 4. Ibycus and Bacchylides. § 5. Rise of history and of composition in prose. § 6. Hecatæus, Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus. § 7. Herodotus. § 8. Character of his work. Analysis. § 9. Predilection of Herodotus for Athens. § 10. Style of his work.

§ 1. DURING the period which we have been surveying in the present book, Grecian literature was gradually assuming a more popular form, especially at Athens, where, since the expulsion of the Pisistratids, the people were rapidly advancing both in intellectual culture and in political importance. Of this we have a striking proof in the rise of the drama, and the founding of a regular theatre; for dramatic entertainments must be regarded as the most popular form which literature can assume. Nearly half a century before the Persian invasion, Thespis had sketched out the first feeble rudiments of tragedy; and Eschylus, the real founder of tragic art, exhibited a play nine years before he fought at Marathon. But tragedy still awaited its final improvements from the hand of Sophocles, whilst comedy can hardly be said to have existed. For these reasons we shall defer an account of the Greek drama to a later period, when we shall be enabled to present the subject as a whole, and in a connected point of view.

Tragedy, the noblest emanation of ancient genius, was in fact only the final development of lyric poetry; which, in the period we are considering, had attained its highest pitch of excellence in the hands of Simonides and Pindar. These two great masters of the lyre never ventured, however, beyond the stricter limits of that species of composition, and left their contemporary,

Eschylus, to gather laurels in a new and unexplored field. With Pindar ends the ancient school of lyric poetry; with Eschylus properly begins the splendid list of Athenian dramatists.

§ 2. Simonides was considerably older than both these poets; but the length of years which he attained made him their contemporary. He was born at Iulis, in the island of Ceos, in the year 556 B.C. His family had cultivated music and poetry with diligence and success, and he himself was trained up in them as a profession. From his native island he proceeded to Athens, where he resided some years at the court of Hipparchus, together with Anacreon and Lasus of Hermione, the teacher of Pindar: a society which could not but serve to expand and mature his powers, more especially as a sort of rivalry existed between him and Lasus. Here he seems to have remained till the expulsion of Hippias (B.C. 510). Subsequently he spent some time in Thessaly, under the patronage of the Aleuads and Scopads, the dominant families of the cities of Larissa and Crannon. The poet seems, however, to have been but little satisfied with his visit. His songs were unappreciated by the rugged Thessalians, and illrewarded by their vain and selfish masters. Scopas bespoke a poem on his own exploits, which Simonides recited at a banquet. In order to diversify the theme, Simonides, as was customary on such occasions, introduced into it the exploits of Castor and Pollux. An ordinary mortal might have been content to share the praises of the sons of Leda; but vanity is exacting; and as the tyrant sat at his festal board among his courtiers and sycophants, he grudged every verse that did not echo his own praises. When Simonides approached to receive his promised reward, Scopas exclaimed, "Here is my half of thy pay; the Tyndarids who have had so much of thy praise will doubtless furnish the other." The disconcerted poet retired to his seat amidst the laughter which followed the great man's jest. In a little time he received a message that two young men on horseback, whose description answered in every respect to that of Castor and Pollux, were waiting without, and anxious to see him. Simonides hastened to the door, but looked in vain for the visitors. Scarcely, however, had he left the banqueting hall, when the building fell in with a loud crash, burying Scopas and all his guests beneath the ruins. Into the authenticity of such a story it would be idle to inquire. It is enough that we see in it the tribute which a lively and ingenious people paid to merit, as in the tales of Arion saved by the dolphin, and of Ibycus avenged by the

cranes.

But a nobler subject than the praises of despots awaited the muse of Simonides-the struggles of Greece for her inde

pendence. At the time of the Persian wars, the poet, who had then reached the age usually allotted to man, was again residing among the Athenians. His genius, however, was still fresh and vigorous, and was employed in celebrating the most momentous events of that memorable epoch. He carried away the prize from Eschylus with an elegy upon the warriors who had fallen at the battle of Marathon. Subsequently we find him celebrating the heroes of Thermopylæ, Artemisium, Salamis, and Platea. He was upwards of 80 when his long poetical career at Athens was closed with the victory which he gained with the dithyrambic chorus in B.C. 477, making the 56th prize that he had carried off. Shortly after this event he repaired to Syracuse at the invitation of Hiero. Here he spent the remaining ten years of his life, not only entertaining Hiero with his poetry, but instructing him by his wisdom; for Simonides was a philosopher as well as a poet, and is reckoned amongst the sophists.

Simonides was one of the most prolific poets that Greece had seen; but only a few fragments of his compositions have descended to us. He employed himself on all the subjects which fell to the lyric poet, then the mouth-piece of human life with all its joys and sorrows, its hopes and disappointments. He wrote hymns, pæans, elegies, hyporchemes, or songs for dancing, dithyrambs, epinician odes, and threnes, or dirges, in which he lamented the departed great. In the last species of composition he particularly excelled. His genius was inclined to the pathetic, and none could touch with truer effect the chords of human sympathy.

§ 3. Pindar, though the contemporary of Simonides, was considerably his junior. He was born either at, or in the neighbourhood of, Thebes in Boeotia, about the year 522 B.C. His family ranked among the noblest in Thebes, and seems to have been celebrated for its skill in music, though there is no authority for the assertion that they were hereditary flute-players. The youth soon gave indications of a genius for poetry, which induced his father to send him to Athens to receive more perfect instruction in the art. Later writers tell us that his future glory as a poet was miraculously foreshadowed by a swarm of bees which rested upon his lips while he was asleep, and that this miracle first led him to compose poetry. At Athens he became the pupil of Lasus of Hermione, who was the founder of the Athenian dithyrambic school. He returned to Thebes before he had completed his twentieth year, and is said to have received instruction there from Myrtis and Corinna, two poetesses who then enjoyed great celebrity in Boeotia. Corinna appears to have exercised considerable influence upon the youth

ful poet, and he was not a little indebted to her example and precepts. It is related that she recommended him to introduce mythical narrations into his poems, and that when, in accordance with her advice, he composed a hymn in which he interwove almost all the Theban mythology, she smiled and said, “We ought to sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack." With both these poetesses he contended for the prize in the musical contests at Thebes.

Pindar commenced his professional career at an early age, and soon acquired so great a reputation, that he was employed by various states and princes of the Hellenic race to compose choral songs. He was courted especially by Alexander, king of Macedonia, and by Hiero, despot of Syracuse. The praises which he bestowed upon Alexander are said to have been the chief reason which led his descendant, Alexander the Great, to spare the house of the poet when he destroyed the rest of Thebes. About B.C. 473, he visited Syracuse, but did not remain more than four years with Hiero, as he loved an independent life, and did not care to cultivate the courtly arts which rendered his contemporary, Simonides, a more welcome guest at the table of their patron. But the estimation in which Pindar was held, is still more strikingly shown by the honours conferred upon him by the free states of Greece. Although a Theban, he was always a great favourite with the Athenians, whom he frequently praised in his poems, and whose city he often visited. The Athenians testified their gratitude by making him their public guest, and by giving him 10,000 drachmas; and at a later period they erected a statue in his honour.

The only poems of Pindar which have come down to us entire are his Epinicia or triumphal odes, composed in commemoration of victories gained in the great public games. But these were only a small portion of his works. He also wrote hymns, pæans, dithyrambs, odes for processions, songs of maidens, mimic dancing songs, drinking songs, dirges, and encomia, or panegyrics on princes.*

*Most of them are mentioned by Horace :

"Seu per audaces nova dithyrambos

Verba devolvit, numerisque fertur

Lege solutis ;

Seu deos (hymns and pœans) regesve (encomia) canit, deorum
Sanguinem:

Sive quos Elea domum reducit
Palma cœlestes (the Epinicia).

Flebili sponsæ juvenemve raptum
Plorat" (the Dirges).-OD. iv. 2.

The style of Pindar is marked by daring flights and abrupt transitions, and became proverbial for its sublimity. He compared himself to an eagle,—a simile which has been beautifully expressed in the lines of Gray :

"The pride and ample pinion

That the Theban eagle bare,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air."

§ 4. The only other poets of this epoch whom we need mention are Ibycus and Bacchylides. Ibycus was a native of Rhegium, and flourished towards the middle of the sixth century before the Christian era. The best part of his life was spent at the court of Polycrates of Samos. The story of his death is well known. While travelling through an unfrequented place near Corinth, he was set upon by robbers and mortally wounded. As he was on the point of expiring, he called upon a flock of cranes that happened to fly over the spot to avenge his death. Soon afterwards the cranes were beheld hovering over the theatre at Corinth, where the people were assembled; and one of the murderers who were present, struck with remorse and terror, involuntarily exclaimed, “Behold the avengers of Ibycus!" and thus occasioned the detection of the criminals. The poetry of Ibycus was chiefly of an amatory character. He wrote in a dialect which was a mixture of the Doric and Eolic.

Bacchylides was a native of Iulis in the island of Ceos, and the nephew and fellow-townsman of Simonides. He lived with Simonides and Pindar at the court of Hiero at Syracuse. His odes and songs turned on the same subjects as those of the poets just named; but though he seems to have rivalled his uncle in the grace and finish of his compositions, he was far from attaining to the strength and energy of Pindar. He wrote in the Doric dialect, with a mixture of the Attic.

Such were the principal characteristics of the poetry of the epoch which we are considering, and such the chief poets who flourished in it. Our attention must now be directed to a striking feature in the literature of the period,-the rise of composition in prose, and of history properly so called.

§ 5. The Greeks had arrived at a high pitch of civilization before they can be said to have possessed a history. Nations far behind them in intellectual development have infinitely excelled them in this respect. Many of the eastern nations had continuous chronicles from a very remote antiquity, as the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Jews. But among the Greeks this branch of literature was singularly neglected. Their imagination seems to have been entirely dazzled and fascinated with