GRAGG. — THE GREEK EPIGRAM BEFORE 300 B. C. 23 



Such epigrams are common to all i)eriods. Cf. K 139, which dates 

 from the Roman period : 



Aatvrjs aX6)([ci)] roiiro x^api^oiJ.fi'os.^^ 



Thus 89 is hardly more elaborate than 17, and 126, 127, 133, 135 are 

 exceedingly simpla A new feature, however, is the tendency of poets 

 to make the epigram longer by simply spreading out their material over 

 a larger space. 



In the earlier epigrams something, no matter how brief, was added 

 to fill out the distich ■ now the amplifying process is often adopted. 

 See, for example, 128, of which the pentameter, Tmrpl 8e ra ttjvov Aaij.o(p6a}v 

 ovofia, might be expressed in one word, Aafxo(p6ovTos. In the pentameter 

 Tovde ^e(a)t r^Se, ^ rod^ (^')x^' Tf fxfvos (127), fj t68' e'xet Tefievos merely repeats 



Epigrams of four verses begin to be very frequent, and the four verses 

 are filled in various ways. Sometimes the material here is diluted, as 

 in the examples cited above. Cf 93, where the author has spread over 

 four verses a sentiment which is expressed with perfect ease in two 

 verses by the author of 5. Sometimes the material is not diluted but 

 elaborated, e. g. 75, 90, 138. Sometimes new material is added, as in 

 77 b, c, 81, 86, 132. 



But it is not only the vocabulary and the sentiments that have come 

 down from the earlier time. The poetic color which distinguishes the 

 work of this century appeared earlier in poems like 25, and the devel- 

 opment of the epigram is thus unbroken, though without doubt the 

 achievements and the glory of the Persian wars were an inspiration to 

 the poets of that age. For with the beginning of the fifth century 

 a new spirit was breathed into all Greece. To say that men suddenly 

 woke to the realization that the individual was but a part of one great 

 nation, and recognized that the liberty bequeathed to them by their 

 fathers was a national possession, a Kx^fia is del, in defence of which 

 every man must cast aside personal considerations — this is to repeat 

 what has been said again and again. But nowhere, except in the 

 " Persians " of the warrior poet, can we trace more clearly the fierce 

 valor, the burning patriotism, the indomitable pride than in the epi- 

 grams of the time. They form a little group set apart from othei 

 epigrams, for in them we miss the individualistic tone which otherwise 

 characterizes the epigram from the beginning to the end of its history. 

 Before this men involuntarily and almost unconsciously had laid stress 

 on the individual and his thoughts and feelings ; later they were to do 



90 Cf. also K 134, 791. 



