28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



rather than a necessity, and not before. Then poets began to cultivate 

 this branch of literature as they would any other. We are not forced 

 to the conclusion that such poems were always "naiyvia beim Ge- 

 lage." ^^"^ The nayviou of course sometimes imitated the form of an 

 inscription ; the epigram quoted by Reitzenstein (Ep. u. Sk., p. 99) is 

 obviously a naiyviov which has usurped the form of an inscription, not 

 an inscription perverted into a iralyviov. Short elegies came finally to 

 be called epigrams, not because iraiyvia usually imitated inscriptions, 

 nor because most inscribed verses were elegiac (for in the fourth cen- 

 tury other metres again came to the front), but because by far the 

 greater number of short elegies were actually inscribed — which is a 

 very different matter. I am unable to see why Reitzenstein holds ^®* 

 that epideictic epigrams could not be composed till inscriptions were 

 collected in book form. Surely it is conceivable that verses on stone 

 pleased men and suggested imitation just as readily as did verses 

 written on parchment; nor did the love of parody make its first 

 appearance in the fourth century. 



The poems just discussed (l.S9, 190) show by their content, not by 

 their form, that they are epideictic. They conform, therefore, to the 

 princij^le laid down above.i°^ On the other hand, 191 and 192, which 

 differ from actual epitaphs only in form, i. e. by the omission of any 

 indication that the verses were inscribed, cannot have been intended 

 by the authors even as imitative inscriptions. For surely if they had 

 wished to imitate the established form of an epitaph they could have 

 done it more cleverly than this ! The influence of inscriptions is with- 

 out doubt to be seen in these verses, but epitaphs, whether real or 

 epideictic, they are not. 



Among these epigrams I have ventured to insert some fragments (?) 

 of Theognis.iio Together with 196-20,"), they include almost every kind 

 of epigram, — gnomic, satiric, epideictic, erotic, convivial, narrative. 

 To exclude such poems from the list of early epigrams in order to make 

 the history of Greek literature conform to a scheme which we have 

 arbitrarily and, it may very well be, falsely mapped out, appears to me 

 to be arguing in a circle. 



The diction of fifth-century epigrams is largely epic. The following 

 epic words are but a small part of those which occur : 



^*" lleitzenstein (p. 9G) : " Sio (i. e. tlie epif^rains of Asclepiades ami liis contem- 

 poraries) ergeben eiii einheitliches Hild sobaM wir sie als Liedor beim Gelage aufla8- 

 scn." He lias, however, failed to show the necessity for arriving at " ein einheitliches 

 Bild." 



"8 p. 104 (1. c). 



"9 p. 19. "0 See p. 7. 



