Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/401

Rh island of Salamis. In the later ones, however, his chief themes are the beauty and advantage of good order and government, and the problem of reconciling them with freedom, the danger of wealth and corruption, the superiority of virtue to vice, of moderation to pride and presumption. There are reflections also on the various problems of life—the prosperity of the wicked, the mysterious ways of providence, as well as certain details of his own personal habits and thoughts; and a description of the ten stages of a man's life in periods of seven years. The most complete extant work of the Elegiac poets is that of of Megara (B.C. 540 about). It consists of a series of short poems, varying, as a rule, from four to eight lines (though some are longer) addressed to a certain Cyrnus. They contain a curious medley of practical observations and precepts adapted to the life of the Dorian nobles with whom he lived. Sometimes he is cynical, sometimes practical and acute, but he is never very poetical or interesting. The Elegiacs of Simonides, whose lyrics have been already noticed, are mostly epitaphs on those fallen in the war, or on men with whom he had some special tie of interest. A specimen in a lighter vein, almost “let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” will show a different side of his genius:—