118 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



singing his praises, like those of Apollo, in a sacred paean. For- 

 tunately this composition has come down to us, and turns out to be a 

 common scolium, or drinking song, similar in its nature to the cele- 

 brated one, so popular at Athenian banquets, which records the 

 deserts of Harmodius and Aristogitoii. It possesses no very high 

 degree of poetical merit ; but as an expression of good feeling, and as 

 a literary curiosity, being the only remaining specimen of its author's 

 powers in this branch, it perhaps deserves a place in the note. 1 The 

 perfection of the manly character is personified as *' a virgin, for 

 whose charms it is an enviable lot to die, or to endure the severest 

 hardships. The enthusiasm with which she inspires the hearts of her 

 lovers is more precious than gold, than parents, than the luxury of 

 soft-eyed sleep ! For her it was that Hercules and the sons of Leda 

 toiled, and Achilles and Ajax died! her fair form, too, made Her- 

 mias, the nursling of Atarneus, renounce the cheerful light of the sun. 

 Hence his deeds shall become the subject of song, and the Muses, 

 daughters of Memory, shall wed him to immortality when they 

 magnify the name of Jupiter Xenius (i. e. Jupiter as the protector of 

 the rights of hospitality), and bestow its meed on firm and faithful 

 friendship !" By comparing this relic with the scolium to Harmodius 

 and Aristogiton, which Athenaaus has preserved on the page pre- 

 ceding the one from which this is taken, the reader will at once see 

 that Hermias is mentioned together with Achilles and Ajax, and the 

 other heroes of mythology, only in the same manner as Harmodius is ; 

 yet not only did this performance bring down on its author's head the 

 calumnies we have mentioned, but many years after it was even made! 



fiiw ! 

 T(>6iv 



xet vrov9Vf 

 <ro7ov tvri <o 



v Tt XQitrtru xa,} yov'iuv 

 7o 6 1 vfvou. 



svs^ OVK 

 rt Kovoot 

 trav aptv 



"Aietf <r d'toeto *b'o[ 

 ffeis T* tvtxsv QtK 

 xeti 



roiyetg et 



K^a.VK'TOV 71 ftIV 



Aio; Ziviou ffiQfc; 



qnXias TI y'ioai fitfietiou. 



This Scolium is preserved in Diogenes Laert. Vit. Arist. sec. 7; Athenseus, 

 p. 696; and Stobseus, Serm. i. p. 2. From the first (sec. 27) we learn that Aris- 

 totle also composed some epic and some elegiac poetry. 



