6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



simple epigram belongs — in greater or less degree — to all periods. I 

 have also thought it safer to omit epigrams which, though they are ex- 

 tant only in inscriptions of a late period, are thought by some to 

 reproduce early inscriptions.**' 



At the end of the list** I have enumerated the epigrams which, in 

 my opinion, are wrongly attributed to early poets. 



When Haenel said that we ought to call no poem an epigram unless 

 we know when it was composed *2 he meant to draw a distinction 

 between epigram, as we commonly use the word, and fniypamia as used 

 by the Greeks of the sixth and fifth centuries b. c. A Greek epigram ** 

 is to most of us any short poem — irrespective of the sentiment ex- 

 pressed — complete in itself and composed in the elegiac metre. Such 

 a poem, Haenel says, would not have been an epigram at all to the 

 Greeks of the sixth century b. c. In this he is of course quite right, for 

 it is clear that the early Greeks would have assented to the definition 



we find in SuidaS — TrdvTa ra iinypa(^6fj.eva ricri, kuv fxr) iv fitrpon flprj^e'va, 



iinypap.fiaTa'XeyeTat..^^ This Continued to be the meaning of the word 

 for a long time, for there is no proof that in Herodotus the word is " on 

 the point of acquiring its literary sense," *^ if by " literary sense " is 

 meant any sort of poem as distinguished from prose, and that Demos- 

 thenes could still apply the term to prose is abundantly evident from 

 his orations.*^ It is not until 94 A. D. that we have actual proof that 

 the word signified a poem in elegiacs. In an inscription of that date 

 discovered near Rome *^ we find the word fmypapp-aTa prefixed to 

 elegiacs to distinguish them from the hexameters which precede. 

 Even in the Palatine Anthology the word appears but twice *8 and 

 the two verses in question — both very late — merely prove that the 

 authors understood epigrams to be poems ; they are not in themselves 

 positive evidence that the term included poems which were not 

 inscribed. 



Still, that the idea of epigram actually had changed long before 

 94 A. D., all agree. Collectors of imypdppaTa in the third century b. c. 



" E. g. CIG 1050, 1051. See PLG 2. 238. 

 " pp. 55 <r. " p. 18. 



*' We are not concerned hero with the somewliat dilTerent coloring of "epigram " 

 as applied to poems in Latin and other languages. 



** S. V. eiriypajxixa. ^^ Mackail, p. 1. 



" E. g. Or. 22. 72 ; 2t. 180. " K CIS. 



^' AP 9. 342 : <I>7;^ti woKvcrTixh" iTriypdufiaTOi oi"' Kara Moi5(raj 

 clvai • /j.'ri ^-qTeir' iv aradltp SJXiX"*'. 



AP 0. 360 : JldyKa\6i> iar' iirlypafi/xa rb ditTTixo" • '^v hi irapfKO^t 

 Toiis Tpe7s, ^aif/udets kovk iirlypa/xfia X^yeis. 



