GR-\GG. — THE GREEK EPIGRAM BEFORE 300 B. C. 19 



reason for rejecting them as epigrams in our sense of the word. They 

 ought to be all the more carefully examined because they are few and 

 treasured as the seeds from which the later epigram sprang. 80 in 

 68-70 we have early examples of satiric epigram. 

 E. g. 69. 



Kai x68f Ar]fxo8()<ov • Xioi kokoI • ov^ 6 ^eu. os S ov, 

 7Tdl>T(i TtAjJI/ HjJOKXfOVS • Kcii llpOKXtrjs Se \ios. 



Reitzenstein ^' claims that the later satiric epigram grew out of jests at 

 banquets ; it is at least equally probable that it merely continued such 

 epigrams as these, which give no indication that they were convivial 

 witticisms, though they may have been. 72 is one of the ancestors of 

 the later narrative epigram. 



There remains ep. 74, a poem which I cannot think was ever inscribed 

 in the sixth century, because it contains no word for "tomb" or any 

 other indication that the verses are an epitaph. 



A^Bripcju TTpodavovra tov alvo^irju AydOava 



TTcia' eirl nvpKairjs fjS ilSorjae ttoXh • 

 ovTiva yap Toi6i'8e vfujv 6 cpiXnlparos Ap}]i 



rjuapttrev aTvyepijs ev crTpo(pu\iyyi pa\r]s. 



For the same reason I cannot regard it as an early epideictic epitaph. 

 Such poems, i.e. epigrams not meant to be inscribed themselves, but 

 imitating inscriptions, are, I take it, of two sorts. They may be accu- 

 rate imitations of real inscriptions — exercises, as it were, in writing 

 epitaphs or dedications. In this case they are composed merely to 

 display the author's skill, which would be hardly worth displaying if 

 he tripped in a matter so simple as an essential word or formula. Or 

 (the second possibility) the aim of such a poem may be, not the accu- 

 rate imitation of an inscription, but the use in a general way of the 

 inscriptional form as a vehicle for jest or satire — a parody rather than 

 an imitation of an inscription. In this case it is not the difference in 

 form but the difference in content that marks the verses as epideictic. 

 Moreover, so long as men considered primarily the utility of the epi- 

 gram they were not likely to compose epideictic epigrams. For these 

 reasons, if 7-4 was intended as an epitaph, real or imitative, it cannot 

 belong to the sixth century, since it omits an element found in all 

 actual epita,phs of that century and yet gives no further evidence that 

 it is of an ei)ideictic character. It is, however, quite possible that the 

 poem has no reference to a tomb at all. If this is so, there is no reason 



" Ej'igramin u. Skolioii, p. 92. 



