Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/139

117 LITEHATUUE OF ANC1UNT GKEiiCE. 117 having while it could be devoted to love, before unseemly and anxious old age comes on*. These ideas, which have since been so often re- peated, are expressed by Mimnermus with almost irresistible grace. The beauty of youth and love appears with the greater charm when accom- panied with the impression of its caducity, and the images of joy stand out in the more vivid light as contrasted with the shadows of deep-seated melancholy!- § 11. With this soft Ionian, who even compassionates the God of the Sun for the toils which he must endure in order to illuminate the earthj, Solon the Athenian forms an interesting contrast. Solon was a man of the genuine Athenian stamp, and lor that reason fitted to produce by his laws a permanent influence on the public and private life of his coun- trymen. In his character were combined the freedom and susceptibility of the Asiatic Ionian, with the energy and firmness of purpose which marked the Athenian. By the former amiable and liberal tendencies he was led to favour a system of " live and let live," which so strongly distinguishes his legislation from the severe discipline of the Spartati constitutions : by the latter he was enahled to pursue his proposed ends with unremitting constancy. Hence, too, the elegy of Solon was dedi- cated to the service of Mars as well as of the Muses; and under the combined influence of a patriotic disposition like that of Callinus, and of a more enlarged view of human nature, there arose poems of which the loss cannot be sufficiently lamented. But even the extant fragments of them enable us to follow this great and noble-minded man through all the chief epochs of his life. The elegy of Salamis, which Solon composed about Olymp. 44 (G04 n. c.) had evidently more of the fire of youth in it than any other of his poems. The remarkable circumstances under which it was written are related by the ancients, from Demosthenes downwards, with tolerable agreement, in the following manner. The Athenians had from an early period contested the possession of Salamis with the Megarians, and the great power of Athens was then so completely in its infancy, that they were not able to wrest this island from their Doric neighbours, small as was the Megarian territory. The Athenians had suffered so many losses in the attempt, that they not only gave up all propositions in the popular assembly for the reconquest of Salamis, but even made it penal to bring forward such a motion. Under these circumstances, J-"olon one day suddenly appeared in the costume of a herald, with the proper cap (VttW) upon his head, having previously spread a report th it he was mad; sprang in the place of the popular assembly upon the the Musts and Aphrodite for the embellishment of the banquet, is a sentiment also expressed by an Ionian later by two generations (Auacreon of Teos), who himself also composed elegies : Ov <pt)Aw ci no^rln^i TK^k rrXitu oUo-roru^ojv, Nji*s« xa< WXe/<»» iaitpulnvrx Xiyn. (Atheu. xi. p. 463.) f Fragg. 1—5. } Fivgm. S.
 * Th.it the subject of the elegy should not be contest and war, but the gifts of