Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/91

 LYRIC POETKY.-THE SEVEN WISE MEN. 73 remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the interval between GOO-300 B.C., than it came to be afterwards. For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and cor- rupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners, who were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic char- acter ; so that although in later times the games continued undi- rainished, both in attraction and in number of visitors, the spirit of Pan-Hellenic communion, which had once animated the scene, was gone forever. CHAPTER XXIX. LYRIC POETRY. -THE SEVEN WISE MEN. THE interval between 776-560 B.C. presents to us a remarka- ble expansion of Grecian genius in the creation of their elegiac, iambic, lyric, choric, and gnomic poetry, which was diversified in a great many ways and improved by many separate masters. The creators of all these different styles from Kallinus and Archilochus down to Stesichorus fall within the two centuries here included ; though Pindar and Simonides, " the proud and high-crested bards," l who carried lyric and choric poetry to the maximum of elaboration consistent with full poetical effect, lived in the succeeding century, and were contemporary with the tra- gedian JEschylus. The Grecian drama, comic as well as tragic, of the fifth century B.C., combined the lyric and choric song at these games, that diplomatists made use of the intercourse for the pur- pose of detecting the secret designs of states whom they suspected, and that the administering state often practised manoeuvres in respect to the abligations of truce for the Hieromenia, or Holy Mortli. 1 Himerius, Orat. iii, p. 426, Wernsdorf. u-yepuxot /cot w/ VOL. IV 4