GRAGG. — THE GREEK EPIGRAM BEFORE 300 B.C. 13 



poets themselves — they wrote indocti doctique — and the results are 

 what might be expected. Hence the crudeness of some of the verses, 

 which is to be attributed to the particular author, not to antiquity in 

 general. Afterward, when they had become more accustomed to com- 

 posing and had more models before their eyes, even ordinary men with 

 no greater inspiration than their predecessors acquired greater ease 

 of style and produced fewer rude epigrams. Again the extreme 

 simplicity of many verses is the result of the restraint, not of the lack 

 of skill of the authors, since the Greek of early times felt that only 

 simplicity could be in place in approaching his gods or his dead'. So it 

 happen^ that an epigram very probably written by Anacreon shows 

 the same characteristics as the epigrams on the stones of the Dipylon.*® 

 In the simplest epigrams a few common and familiar words fill out 

 the metre, often merely forming a complete sentence of words that 

 in the earliest times had been disconnected. So 



AvcTfa (v6a8e crTJfia Trarqp 'Srjfjicou imdrjKev ^"^ 



adds nothing to the meaning of the earlier form Ava-ea irjficovos. In 



^rdXa Sfvrapeot rov Mkei^ioi (ifi eni rvfji^co ^^ 



only the words enl rv^^a are added to the primitive formula. 

 The same is the case with dedicatory inscriptions, e. g. 



'AjXKtjSiof avidrjKev KidapwSos vrjaidjTrjs.^^ 



IGA 410 (=K 1098) perhaps shows most clearly the metrical inscrip- 

 tion in the making. 



'AX^rjvci>\^p fjwoirjaev 6 Na^toj • dXX' e(ri8e(r[^df. 



It is the desire to conform to the fashion of the time that has led the 

 artist to this naive expression of pride in his work. Epithets of the 

 gods, too, suggest a convenient method of filling out the verse, especially 

 since the poet found them adapted to dactylic measure and ready to 

 his hand. Examples are 



Ajfti'ayo[p]fys p aveBrjKfv eKij^oXa 'ATToXXtui't.'*^ 

 'Adrjuuia TToXioii)(co[i ^^ 



*6 Cf. 7 and 20. « CIA I. 468 ( = K 5). 



" IGA 344 ( = K 181). « CIA I. 957 ( = Roberts 48), 



" CIA IV. 373"8 p. 86 ( = H 240). Cf. IGA 466 (= H 286) and CIA I. 344 ( = 

 H 216). 



" IGA 408 (= H 300). 62 ciA IV. 373«^ p. 89. 



