Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/190

168 ^58 HISTORY OP THE live epithets which appear fitter for iambic than for lyric poetry. Thus he taunts him in words of the boldest formation, sometimes with his mean appearance, sometimes with his low and vulgar mode of life *. As compared with Pittacus, it seems that the poet now deemed the former tyrant Melanchrus, " worthy of the respect of the city f." In this class of his poems (called by the ancients his party poems, Zi X o<7ra(naaTiK&), Meatus gave a lively picture of the political state of Mytilene, as it appeared to his partial view. His war-songs express a stirring martial spirit, though they do not breathe the strict principles of military honour which prevailed among the Dorians, particularly in Sparta." He describes with joy his armoury, the walls of which glit- tered with helmets, coats of mail, and other pieces of armour, " which must now be thought upon, as the work of war is begun J." He speaks of war with courage and confidence to his companions in arms; there is no need of walls (he says), " men are the best rampart of the city § ;" nor does he fear the shining weapons of the enemy. " Em- blems on shields make no wounds ||." He celebrates the battles of his adventurous brother, who had, in the service of the Babylonians, slain a gigantic champion %; and speaks of the ivory sword-handle which this brother had brought from the extremity of the earth, probably the pre- sent of some oriental prince **. Yet the pleasure he seems to have felt in deeds of arms did not prevent him from relating in one of his poems, how in a battle with the Athenians he had escaped indeed with his life, but the victors had hung up his castaway arms as trophies, in the temple of Pallas at Sigeum f f. § 4. A noble nature, accompanied with strong passions, a variety of character frequent among the iEolians, appears in all the poetry of Alcseus, especially in the numerous poems which sing the praises of love and wine. The frequent mention of wine in the fragments of Alcgeus shows how highly he prized the gift of Bacchus, and how in • genious he was in the invention of inducements to drinking. Now it is the cold storms of winter which drive him to drink by the flame of the is, who sups in the dark, and not in a room lighted with lamps and torches. f Fragm. 7. Blomf. 7. Matth. + Fragm. 24. Blomf. 1. Matth. comp. below § 5. § Fragm. 9. Blomf. 11,12. Matth. % The fragment in Straho xiii. p. 6 1 7, (8G. Blomf. 8. Matth.) has been thus emended by the author in Niebuhr's Rheinisches Museum, vol. i. p. 287. — K«i tov ahxtpov Ayrifity'i^av, o» f'/iiriv 'AXzaTo; BctjZuXuv'iois /rv/^/ta^ovvra nXs/rui fayav u(Xov, xai tx. rrovwi avTah; pvtratrlSai xr'rjxvru Kvdpa f/.tx%arav, ci$ tpwri, (hutriXriiav, tfuXowrruv wroXtiwovTU. ftovov fi'iav tfuxtav ano -ri^-ruy, (Mo. for vrivri) : that is, tliis royal champion only wanted a palm of five Greek cubits. ft Fragm. 56. Blomf. 9. Matth.
 * In Diog. Laert. 1. 81. Fragm. 6. Matth. Thus he calls Pittacus ^obo^r'iba:, that
 * Fragm. 13. Matth.
 * Fragm. 32. Blomf. 67. Matth.