30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Although the tone of the epigrams of the fifth century often differs 

 from that of the earlier work, the difference between the poems of the 

 fifth and of the fourth centuries is even more marked. In the fifth 

 century, not only during the Persian wars, but even at the end of the 

 century,!^* patriotism and the good of the state were foremost in men's 

 minds. But with the fourth century the individualistic tendency re- 

 turned, and it appears in other fields besides the epigram. A striking 

 testimony to the passing of the great period in Greek national life is 

 the sudden drop in tone of the epigrams of the fourth century. The 

 tendency to individualism was fostered by philosophy, particularly by 

 the Peripatetic school, and flattered by rhetoric, but the individual was 

 as yet a somewhat unsatisfactory and uninspiring subject, and the 

 details with which the verses now begin to be loaded are for the most 

 part dry facts expressed in curt or rambling style. ^^^ ^ man's coun- 

 try, his age, his trade or profession, i*^ his whole genealogical tree,^^^ 

 — these are not the touching and intimate details which give to the 

 later epigram its charm, — details that move our sympathy for the 

 dead as for a friend, ^^^ and make us feel the gracious, kindly presence 

 of the gods.^^® 



While the earlier epigrams select for glorification valor in arms or 

 success in the great games, now we find men praised also for learning 

 and for excellence in the fine arts, — qualities which belong to men as 

 individuals, not as members of a state. In the fifth century it was the 

 glory of a noble death that appealed to the poet ; in the fourth, as in 

 the sixth, it was the sadness that affected him — • again a change that 

 corresponds with the shifting of interest from the state to the individual. 

 But though this feeling is expressed in the sixth century, it is expressed 

 with restraint, sometimes hardly more than hinted ; in the fourth cen- 

 tury it is revealed more freely. More and more men brooded over 

 the idea of death and deplored the power of envious fate which could 

 snatch men from the pleasures and opportunities of life. In almost 



1" Cf. 81. "5 Cf. 265 and 247. 



"6 See Tables I, II. "' E. g. 265, 274, 275, 286. 



"8 Cf. 245 with AP 7. 502: 



'llpiov fi/il Blruvoi, odolwope ■ el 5^ Topwv7]i> 



XeiTTwi/ ft J avTrju ^pxeai 'Afi<plTro\tv, 

 elvetv ^iKay6p<;i TraiSwv 8ti top /xbvov avrij) 

 ^rpviJ.ovir]s'Kpl<f>(i)v wXecre Travdvcrlj). 



Nowhere do we find the touch, so light and yet so sure, of AP 7. 453 

 AciidfK€Ti] rbv waiSa Trarrjp dw^OrjKe <I'L\t7r7ro5 

 ifOdSe, TrfV TToWrjv iXirida, ^lkot^Xtiv. 



*^' Cf. any of the dedicatory epigrams of tliis ceutury with Mackail, § 2. 9-12. 



