BY THE GREEKS. 13 



the Hydaspes burn even the fish in the bed of the river ; he 

 tells how ascending vapours produce the meteorological 

 processes of storm and electric rain. Nonnus of Panopolis 

 is inclined to romantic poetry, and is remarkably unequal ; 

 at times spirited and interesting, at others verbose and 

 tedious. 



A more delicate sensibility to natural beauty shews itself 

 occasionally in the Greek Anthology, which has been handed 

 down to us in such various ways, and from such different 

 periods. In the pleasing translation by Jacobs, all that 

 relates to plants and animals is collected in one section : 

 these passages form small pictures, most commonly, of only 

 single objects. The plane tree, which " nourishes among 

 its boughs the grape swelling with rich juice," and which, 

 in the time of Dionysius the Elder, reached the banks of 

 the Sicilian Anapus from Asia Minor, through the Island of 

 Diomedes, occurs perhaps but too often ; still, on the whole, 

 the antique mind shews itself in these songs and epigrams as 

 more inclined to dwell on animal than on vegetable forms. 



The vernal idyll of Meleager of Gadara in Ccelo-Syria is 

 a noble and more important composition ( 14 ). I am un- 

 willing, were it only for the ancient renown of the locality, 

 to omit all notice of the description of the wooded Yale of 

 ^mpe given by JElian ( 15 ), probably from an earlier notice 

 by Dicearchus. It is the most detailed description of 

 natural scenery by a Greek prose writer which we possess ; 

 and, although topographic, is at the same time picturesque. 

 The shady valley is enlivened by the Pythian procession 

 (theoria), "which gathers from the sacred laurel the 

 reconciling bough." 



In the latest Byzantine epoch, towards the end of the 



