136 THEOCRITUS— GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS 



than thou hast found the golden fish ^ of thy vision : dreams 

 are but lies. But if thou wilt search these waters, wide awake 

 and not asleep, there is some hope in thy slumbers : seek the 

 fish of flesh, lest thou die of famine with all thy dreams of 

 gold ! " 



The influence of Theocritus, though becoming less natural 

 and rendered more conventional by the pretty conceits of the 

 later Alexandrian period, 2 permeates the literature of Greece 

 and Rome for many centuries. In none, perhaps, is this in- 

 fluence more marked than in his pupils Bion and Moschus, and 

 in his younger contemporary, Leonidas of Tarentum. 



Three fisher epigrams 3 by Leonidas suffice as evidence of 

 this. The realism, the pathos, the detailed treatment, the 

 subjects, lowly folk, all alike characterise the Sicilian. 



In the first, the fisherman Diophantus on giving up his 

 trade dedicates, according to custom, all the relics of his calling 

 to the patron of his craft. The list of the implements, including 

 a well-bent hook, long rod, and line of horse hair, here and in 

 an epigram by Philippus of Thessalonica (which adds " the 



* Callimachus, whom Theocritus probably knew at Alexandria, calls the 

 " chrysophrys " sacred — 



" Or shall I rather say the gold-browed fish, 

 That sacred fish ? " 



See Athen., VII. 20. 



2 " Theocritus gives nature, not behind the footlights, but beneath the 

 truthful blaze of Sicily's sunlit sky. For it was here that the first vibrations 

 of this spontaneous note were heard in their original purity, before art could 

 distort them with allegory, or echo weaken them with imitation. This is all 

 the more remarkable from the contrast which it offers to what Kingsley calls 

 the ' artificial jingle ' of the Alexandrian school. Simphcity, honesty, truth, 

 and beauty recommend Theocritus as a genuine artist. His imitators, as 

 compared with their^model, were like — 



'Those many jackdaw-rhymers, who with vain 

 Chattering contend against the Chian Bard,' 



as he himself describes (Id., VII. 47) Homer's imitators." Against this verdict 

 by H. Snow on the Alexandrians must be set the more truthful appreciation of 

 their work by Mackail, op. cii., pp. 178-207, especially p. 184: "They are 

 called artificial poets, as though all poetry were not artificial, and the greatest 

 poetry were not the poetry of the most consummate artifice." 



3 Anth. Pal., VI. 4 ; VII. 295 ; VII. 504. V^ile the last two in the MS. 

 are headed AewpiSov Tapaprivov, and rod avrov, the first is simply AfwviSov. 

 Hence this has sometimes been thought to be by Leonidas of Alexandria, but 

 Professor Mackail informs me that all three epigrams are by the Tarentine, 

 both by evidence of style, and because all three come in groups of epigrams 

 taken from the Anthology of Meleager. 



