Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/145

Rh the Ingenious "restitution" of Hookham Frere, the original type of these poems has been approximately realised, and we are able, in a great measure, to connect the assorted links into a consistent and personal autobiography. For the clearer apprehension of this, it seems best to give a very brief sketch of the political condition of the poet's country at the time he flourished, and then to divide our notice of himself and his works into three epochs, defined and marked out by circumstances which gravely influenced his career and tone of thought.

The poet's fatherland, the Grecian, not Sicilian, Megara, after asserting its independence of Corinth, of which it had been a colony, fell under the sway of a Doric nobility, which ruled it in right of descent and of landed estates. But before the legislation of Solon, Theagenes, the father-in-law of Gelon, had become tyrant or despot of Megara, like Cypselus and Periander at Corinth, by feigned adoption of the popular cause. His ascendancy was about 630-600, and upon his overthrow the aristocratic oligarchy again got the upper hand for a brief space, until the commons rose against them, and succeeded in establishing a democracy of such anarchical tendency and character, that it was not long ere the expelled nobles were reinstated. The elegies of Theognis, who was born about 570, date from about the beginning of the democratic rule, and, as he belonged to the aristocracy, deplore the sufferings of his party, and the spoliation of their temples and dwellings by the poor, who no longer paid the interest of their debts. Frequent reference will be found in