GRAGG. — THE GREEK EPIGRAM BEFORE 300 B. C. 7 



included in their lists many verses that were never meant to appear on 

 stones. Philochorus ^^ and Polemo,^^ indeed, seem to have started 

 with the intention of gathering only inscriptions, but Polemo himself ad- 

 mitted at least one poem of a different sort ; ^^ and for his contempo- 

 raries " tTnypcififiara " were no longcr "inscriptiones." We learn this from 

 Atheniiius, for when he quotes eVtypa/i/iara it is probable that he quotes 

 them by the titles which their authors gave them. In Iledylus, 22 

 Nicaenetus,23 Posidippus 24 we find the name given to convivial poems, 

 and the meaning which the word had assumed in the time of Athenasus 

 himself is clear from many passages.25 In short, among the Greeks 

 epigram came to have an even broader meaning than it has with us. 



Under these circumstances, if we should try to trace the history of the 

 form of literature which the Greeks from age to age called epigram, we 

 should be met by almost insurmountable difficulties, since neither the 

 times or the causes of the changes in meaning can be determined with 

 any degree of accuracy. Epigram, then, in this paper wnll have its later 

 meaning, a short, complete elegiac poem. For if we kept the earliest 

 meaning, we should have to exclude from our consideration all verses 

 except those on stone. This would be most unfortunate, for we are 

 searching for the origin of a particular kind of poem, not of a name, and 

 it is the purpose of this investigation to learn whence the later epigram 

 had its source rather than to discover what finally developed out of the 

 early inscription. 



Therefore, for purposes of literary history, it is absurd to deny to the 

 following verses of Theognis ^6 



A(f)pov€i avdpatnoi Koi vrjirioi oi re davovras 

 Kkaiovcr , oC8' rjjSrjs av6os airohXvfxevov, 



the name which we give to these lines from the Anthology ^t 



Tovf KaTakeiyj^avras yXvKepov (jidos ovKeri 6pT]va), 

 Toiis 8' eVi npocrdoKir] ^avTus del Oavdrov. 



merely because the former date from the sixth or fifth century while the 

 latter are some centuries younger. The same is the case with many 

 other distichs, e. g. 



" Suidas, s. V. ^i\6xopos. 20 Athen. 10. 436 d. 



2^ Athen. 10. 442e:*HXts Kal /xedvet. Kal i/zej^SeToi • olos eKacrTov 



oIkos, TOiaiJTr] Kal ffvvdiracra ir6\is. 

 22 Athen. 11. 473 a. 23 Id. 15. 673 b, 



24 Id. 10. 415 b. 



«» E. g. Athen. 2. 39 c ; 3. 125 c ; 4. 162 a ; 13. 604 f. 

 2« 1069, 1070. 27 AP 11. 282. 



