34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



256. Sco^ja /jfi/ ii> KoXnots KaTe)(ei roSf ya'ia HXutuvos 



The Avriters are usually self-conscious, fond of rhetoric, given to prais- 

 ing learning as readily as valor. Whereas in early days one verse or 

 a few words sufficed for the name of the artist, now an entire epigram 

 is devoted to his name and his boasts ; e. g. 312.^32 254, although 

 different from the rest in contents, is not alien to the taste of this cen- 

 tury, whether we regard it as a real or an imitated epitaph : 



Tovuofia 6rjTa pa> uK(pa aav v fiv nX(f>a ^^ ov crav. 

 Trarpis XaXKr^Swj' • t] 8e Tex^vTj ao(f)iT]. 



By far the most original epigram in our collection is 313 : 



Mz/a/^a fifu EXXas anaa' 'EupiiriSov, oarea 8 lax^i 



yij Mn/ffScbi/, 17 yap 8e^aTo Ttppa ^lov. 

 iraTp\s 8' 'EXXaSoy 'EXXar, Adrjvai. TrXcIora 8e pavcrait 



Tep'^as. eK noWcoi' Kcil top eiraivov e)^et. 



The expression 'EXXdSoy 'EXXds seems to some critics too rhetorical for 

 the fourth century. That is a question that can hardly be answered 

 with any degree of certainty, but to me it seems not inconsistent with 

 the style of Euripides himself At any rate, the poem makes use of 

 formulas which are characteristic of this period, and I am unwilling to 

 reject it without further arguments against its genuineness. 



There remain the epigrams attributed to Plato, with regard to which 

 I have been and still am doubtful. Fava ^33 denies that any of them 

 belong to Plato or to the fourth century at all. Bergk accepts only 322. 

 It seems to me, however, that we have no right to reject them all 

 because some are surely or very probably late. In 318 and 319 we 

 find early formulas combined with the freedom of expression which 

 belongs to the foui'th century. We cannot reject them on the ground 

 that they are written for one and the same stone, since we know that 

 two such epigrams might actually be inscribed side by side.^^* As for 

 the rest that I have included, they may, of course, be late.^'® Still it 

 is at least probable that in the fourth century there were prototypes 

 of the epigrams so frequent in the third, ^^^ and every one, I suppose, 

 would be willing to date these epigrams assigned to Plato as early as 



"2 Cf. 302, 310, 311, 312 a. 



133 (;ii Epigramnii di Platonc. Cf. Reitzcnstein, Ep. u. Sk., pp. 181 flF. 

 13* See p. 32. It is impossible to tell whether they are real or epideictic epi- 

 taplis. 



"5 Cf. pp. 11 fr. 



"6 Cf. 314 with AP 5. 171 ; 320 with A? 5. 82, 83. 



