Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/132

110 1 10 HISTORY OP THE considerable remnant of Callinus, and even that an imperfect one*, is highly interesting - as the first specimen of a kind of poetry in which so much was afterwards composed both by Greeks and Romans. In general the character of the elegy may be recognized, as it was deter- mined by the metre, and as it remained throughout the entire literature of antiquity. The elegy is honest and straightforward in its expression ; it marks all the parts of its picture with strong touches, and is fond of heightening the effect of its images by contrast. Thus in the verses just quoted Callinus opposes the renown of the brave to the obscurity of cow- ards. The pentameter itself, being a subordinate part of the metre, naturally leads to an expansion of the original thought by supplemen- tary or explanatory clauses. This ditfuseness of expression, combined with the excited tone of the sentiment, always gives the elegy a certain degree of feebleness which is perceptible even in the martial songs of Callinus and Tyrtaeus. On the other hand, it is to be observed that the elegy of Callinus still retains much of the fuller tone of the epic style ; it does not, like the shorter breath of later elegies, confine itself within the narrow limits of a distich, and require a pause at the end of every pentameter ; but Callinus in many cases comprehends several hexame- ters and pentameters in one period, without caring for the limits of the verses ; in which respect the earlier elegiac poets of Greece generally imitated him. § 5. With Callinus we will connect his contemporary Tyrtjeus, pro- bably a few years younger than himself. The age of Tyrtaeus is deter- mined by the second Messenian war, in which he bore a part. If with Pausanias this war is placed between Olymp. 23. 4, and 28. 1 (685 and 668 b. c), Tyrtaeus would fall at the same time as, or even earlier than, the circumstances of the Cimmerian invasion mentioned by Callinus; and we should then expect to find that Tyrtaeus, and not Callinus, was considered by the ancients as the originator of the elegy. As the reverse is the fact, this reason may be added to others for thinking that the second Messenian war did not take place till after the 30th Olym- piad (660 B.C.), which must be considered as the period at which Callinus flourished. We certainly do not give implicit credit to the story of later writers that Tyrtaeus was a lame schoolmaster at Athens, sent out of insolence by the Athenians to the Spartans, who at the command of an oracle had applied to them for a leader in the Messenian war. * So much of this account may, however, be received as true, that Tyrtaeus came from Attica to the Lacedaemonians ; the place of his abode being, according to a precise statement, Aphidnee, an Athenian town, which is placed by the legends about the Dioscuri in very early connexion with Laconia. follows the hiatus, in fact belongs to Callinus, or whether the name of Tyrtaeus has not fallen out.
 * It is even doubtful whether the part of this elegiac fragment in Stobseus which