Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/157

135 LITERATURE OP ANCIENT GREECE, 135 in the delineation of offences which deserved some reproof to give the reins to the fancy. The ostensible object of Archilochus's iambics, like that of the later comedy, was to give reality to caricatures, every hideous feature of which was made more striking by being mag- nified. But that these pictures, like caricatures from the hand of a master, had a striking truth, maybe inferred from the impression which Archilochus's iambics produced, both upon contemporaries and posterity. Mere calumnies could never have driven the daughters of Lycambes to hang themselves, if, indeed, this story is to be believed, and is not a gross exaggeration. But we have no need of it ; the uni versal admiration which was awarded to Archilochus's iambics, proves the existence of a foundation of truth ; for when had a satire which was not based on truth universal reputation for excellence ? When Plato produced his first dialogues against the sophists, Gorgias is said to have exclaimed, "Athens has given birth to a new Archilochus." This comparison, made by a man not unacquainted with art, shows at all events that Archilochus must have possessed somewhat of the keen and delicate satire which in Plato is most severe where a dull listener would be least sensible of it. § 8. Unluckily, however, we can form but an imperfect idea of the general character and tone of Archilochus's poetry ; and we can only lament a loss such as has perhaps hardly been sustained in the works of any other Greek poet. Horace's epodes are, as he himself says, formed on the model of Archilochus, as to form and spirit*, but not as to subject; and we can but rarely detect or divine a direct imi- tation of the Parian poetf. All that we can now hope to obtain is the knowledge of the external form, especially the metrical structure of Archilochus's poems ; and if we look to this alone, we must regard Archilochus as one of those creative minds which discover the aptest expression for new directions of human thought. While the metrical form of the epos was founded upon the dactyl, which, from the equality of the arsis and thesis, has a character of repose and steadiness, Archilochus constructed his metres out of that sort of rhythm which the ancient writers called the double (ytVoc cnrXamor), because the arsis has twice the length of the thesis. Hence arose, according as the thesis is at the beginning or the end, the iambus or the trochee, which have the common character of lightness Ostendi Latio, numeros animosque secutus Archilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben. (Horat. Ep. i. 19, 23.) f The complaint about perjury (Epod. xv.) agrees well with the relations of Aiehilochus to the family of Lycambes. The proposal to go to the islands of the blessed, in order to escape all misery, in Epod. xvi.. would be more natural in the mouth of Archilochus, directed to the Thasian colony, than in that of Horace. The Neobule of Horace is Canidia, but with great alterations.
 * Parios ego primus iambos