12 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



later date than the fourth century to which they actually belong. I 

 have therefore tried to err on the side of accepting rather than of reject- 

 ing too much. In a case where, so far as internal evidence goes, an 

 epigram might be late or early, the burden of proof rests with those 

 who would assign it to a date later than that indicated by ancient 

 tradition. It is not enough for them to show that it may be late ; they 

 must also show that in all probability it is not early. I have not 

 rejected without specific reasons any epigram which any ancient 

 authority assigns to a date earlier than 300 b. 0.*^ 



Because of the greater number of hexameter inscriptions of the sixth 

 century, it is necessary to devote more attention to them than to later 

 hexameters. *2 The great majority, consisting as they do of a single 

 verse, do not exhibit that difference in feeling which distinguishes the 

 later series of hexameters from the elegy. 



In the be'ginning the Greeks used inscriptions merely as a means of 

 informing the reader as briefly and easily as possible of the reason for 

 setting up the stones on which they were inscribed. Iliad H. 17** is 

 familiar evidence that some sort of epitaph was usual. Doubtless in 

 earliest times merely the names of the dedicator and the divinity or of 

 the dead man and his father were cut upon the stones — a practice 

 which survived in combination with the later custom. Cf IGA 



149 (= H 58) KaWia AlyL6(&)oio • Tti 8' eu irpaa-i^r at) Trapodwra. 



Thus, although among the Greeks poetry precedes prose as a literary 

 form, it must have been itself preceded by a ruder form of expression. 

 The use of metre testifies to a certain degree of conscious art and there- 

 fore we cannot wonder if in the earliest epigrams which we possess some 

 attempt is made to adorn the bare record of facts. The earliest Greek 

 metrical inscriptions ever composed must have represented, not the first 

 attempts to convey certain information in writing, but the first attempts 

 to convey that information in artistic form. Without doubt long before 

 the time fi^om which our earliest inscriptions date poets had composed 

 songs in memory of the dead and had celebrated offerings to the gods.*^ 

 When the custom arose of inscribing such poems upon stone, those who 

 could not or would not employ the services of professional poets, turned 



« See pp. 55 ff. « See p. 8. 



** Kal wori Tis etiTTTiffi Kal 6\l/iy6i>uv avdpihirwv 



&i>Spbs fikv rdSe ffrj/xa TrdXai KarareOvtOiTOi 

 6v wot' ipiffTttjovra Kar^Krave <palSifj.os"EKTwp. 

 The vocabnl.ary of this passage is echoed by the early inscriptions. Cf. 8, 88, 89. 

 *" It is worth while to rememher that our earliest Attic inscription is metrical. 

 See AM 6 (1881), p. 107. 



