Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/162

140 1 10 HISTORY OF THE As we have laboured to place the great merit of Archilochus in its true lio-ht, we may give a shorter account of the works of his followers in iambic poetry. His writings will also furnish a standard of com- parison for the others. § 11. Simonides of Amorgus follows Archilochus so closely that they may be considered as contemporaries. He is said to have flou- rished in the period following 01. 29 (664 b. a). The principal events of his life, as of that of Archilochus, are connected with the foundation of a colony : he is said to have led the Samians to the neighbour- ing island of Amorgus, and to have there founded three cities. One of these was Minoa, where he settled. Like Archilochus, Simonides composed iambics and trochaic tetrameters; and in the former metre he also attacked individuals with the lash of his invective and ridicule. What the family of Lycambes were to Archilochus, a certain Orodcecides was to Simonides. More remarkable, however, is the peculiar appli- cation which Simonides made of the iambic metre : that is to say, he took not individuals, but whole classes of persons, as the object of his satire. The iambics of Simonides thus acquire a certain resemblance to the satire interwoven into Hesiod's epic poems ; and the more so, as it is on women that he vents his displeasure in the largest of his extant pieces. For this purpose he makes use of a contrivance which, at a later time, also occurs in the gnomes of Phocylides ; that is, he derives the various, though generally bad, qualities of women from the variety of their origin ; by which fiction he gives a much livelier image of female characters than he could have done by a mere enumeration of their qualities. The uncleanly woman is formed from the swine, the cunning woman, equally versed in good and evil, from the fox, the talkative woman from the dog, the lazy woman from the earth, the unequal and changeable from the sea, the woman who takes pleasure only in eating and sensual delights from the ass, the perverse woman from the weasel, the woman fond of dress from the horse, the ugly and malicious woman from the ape. There is only one race created for the benefit of men, the woman sprung from the bee, who is fond of her work and keeps faithful watch over her house. § 12. From the coarse and somewhat rude manner of Simonides, we turn with satisfaction to the contemplation of Solon's iambic style. Even in his hands the iambic retains a character of passion and warmth, but it is only used for self-defence in a just cause. After Solon had introduced his new constitution, he soon found that although he had attempted to satisfy the claims of all parties, or rather to give to each fox uses many arts, but the hedgehop; has one great one," viz. to roll himself up and resist his enemy. And towards the end (fragm. 118) c'y V i*itrraftxi ^ ftiyu, Ton xa.Kas n Znra, laws avTcipufrieia, xxx.o7f, by which words the poet applied to him- self the image of the hedgehog: he had the art of retaliating on those who ill- treated him. Consequently the first fragment would be an incomplete trochaic tetrameter.