Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/51

Rh poets, chiefly in Lesbos and the islands, wrote songs to be sung to music, and therefore called "lyrical." Those of Sappho were mostly on the subject of love; but others, such as those of Alcaeus, were filled with political passion reflecting the unrest which about that time (between B.C. 700 and 600) fell upon the Greek cities in the East, where a wave of resistance to monarchical or oligarchic government was carrying all before it. Another school of poets, of which the chief representative was Archilochus, employed the Iambic metre as a vehicle for fierce invective and personal satire. A third class of poets consisted of the writers of Elegiac verse. This was used, like oratory in a later age, to enforce political or moral doctrines, as in the case of Solon of Athens and Theognis of Megara; or to incite young men to patriotism and gallantry in war, as did Alcman and Tyrtaeus in Sparta. Of the lyric poets, the direct descendants in the next age were the writers of choric songs, encomia, dirges, and epinikia, or songs celebrating victory in the games, the most eminent of whom were Pindar and Baccylides (about B.C. 521–442). The elegiac tradition was kept up by Simonides of Ceos, whose epigrams on fallen patriots or heroes were widely popular just after the period of the Persian wars. It is to be observed that these poets came from all parts of Greece. Athens was not yet the natural headquarters of literature, as she was from about B.C. 450 to 320; and as, after the latter date, Alexandria became, where the poetical tradition was kept up to the fourth century of the Christian era. Between B.C. 300 and 200 we have hymns