Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/137

115 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 1 1 :i 3 the Ionian. In proportion as this race of the (j reeks became more un- warlike and effeminate, the elegy was diverted from subjects relating to public affairs and to struggles for national independence. The elegies of Mimnermus were indeed in great part political ; full of allusions to the origin and early history of his native city, and not devoid of the ex- pression of noble feelings of military honour ; but these patriotic and martial sentiments were mingled with vain regrets and melancholy, caused by the subjection of a large part of Ionia, and especially of the native city of Mimnermus, to the Lydian yoke. Mimnermus flourished from about the 37th Olympiad (634 b. c.) until the age of the Seven Wise Men, about Olymp. 45 (600 b. c.) : as it cannot be doubted that Solon, in an extant fragment of his poems, addresses Mimnermus, as living — " But if you will, even now, take my advice, erase this ; nor bear me any ill-will for having thought on this subject better than you ; alter the words, Ligyastades, and sing — May the fate of death reach me in my sixtieth year" (and not as Mimnermus wished, in his eightieth'*). Consequently the lifetime of Mimnermus, compared with the reigns of the Lydian kings, falls in the short reign of Sadyattes and the first part of the long reign of Hal yattes, which begins in Olymp. 40, 4, b. c. 617. The native city of Mimnermus was Smyrna, which had at that time long been a colony of the Ionic city Colophont- Mimnermus, in an extant fragment of his elegy Nanno, calls himself one of the colonists of Smyrna, who came from Colophon, and whose ancestors at a still earlier period came from the Nelean Pylos. Now Herodotus, in his accounts of the enterprises of the Lydian kings, states that Gyges made war upon Smyrna, but did not succeed in taking it, as he did with Colophon. Halyattes, however, at length overcame Smyrna in the early part of his reign J. Smyrna, therefore, together with a considerable part of Ionia, lost its independence during the lifetime of Mimnermus, and lost it for ever, unless we consider the title of allies, which Athens gave to its subjects, or the nominal libertas with which Rome honoured many cities in this region, as marks of independent sovereignty. It is im- portant to form a clear conception of this time, when a people of a noble nature, capable of great resolutions and endued with a lively and sus- not) (iiravoino-ov, Aiyvu<rru.%ri, uoi o audi, &C. The emendation of Atyvourru.'&ri foj ayutaa-rcchi is due to a young German philologist. It. is rendered highly probable by the comparison of Suidas in MlftviMw This familiar address completes the proof that Mimnermus was then still living. f On the relations of Colophon and Smyrna ; see above, ch. v. § 2. This appears first, because Herodotus, 1. 10, mentions this conquest imme- diately after the battle with Cyaxares (who died 594 u. c.) and the expulsion of the Cimmerians; secondly, because, according to Strabo, xiv. p. 646, Smyrna, having been divided into separate villages by the Lydians, remained in that state for 400 years, until the time of Antigonus. From this it seems that Smyrna fell into the b.ojidsofthe Lydians before 600 b. c. ; even in that case the period cannot have amounted to more thau 300 years. I 2
 * 'AXX li /uoi Kal vuv in ^■titria.i, i%ti touto, f/.w> ftiyccig', on triu Xuiot iQgard/utiv,