Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/205

183 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 183 Polycrates kept about his person, and of whom some had been procured from a distance; as, for example, Smerdies, from the country of the Thracian Ciconians. Some of these youths enlivened the meals of Po- lycrates by music ; as Bathyllus, whose flute-playing and Ionic singing are extolled by a later rhetorician, and of whom a bronze statue was shown in the Temple of Juno at Samos, in the dress and attitude of a player on the cithara ; but which, according to the description of Apu- leius, appears to have been only an Apollo Citharcedus, in the ancient style. Other youths were perhaps more distinguished as dancers. Anacreon offers his homage to all these youths, and divides his affection and admiration between Smerdies with the flowing locks, Cleobulus with the beautiful eyes, the bright and playful Lycaspis, the charming Megistes, Bathyllus, Simalus, and doubtless many others whose names have not been preserved. He wishes them to sport with him in drunken merriment * ; and if the youth will take no part in his joy, he threatens to fly upon light wings up to Olympus, there to make his complaints, and to induce Eros to chastise him for his scorn f. Or he implores Diony- sus, the god with whom Eros, and the dark-eyed nymphs, and the purple Aphrodite, play, — to turn Cleobulus, by the aid of wine, to the love of Anacreon J. Or he laments, in verses full of careless grace, that the fair Bathyllus favours him so little §. He knows that his head and temples are grey ; but he hopes to obtain the affection of the youths by his pleasing song and speech ||. In short, he pays his homage to these youths, in language combining passion and playfulness. § 13. Anacreon, however, did not on this account withhold his admi- ration from female beauty. " Again (he says, in an extant fragment) golden-haired Eros strikes me with a purple ball, and challenges me to sport and play with a maiden with many-coloured sandals. But she, a native of the well-built Lesbos %, despises my grey hairs, and prefers an- other man." His amatory poetry chiefly consists of complaints of the indifference of women to his love; which, however, are expressed in so light and playful a manner, that they do not seem to proceed from ge- nuine regret. Thus, in the beautiful ode, imitated in many places by Horace** : "Thracian filly, why do you look at me askance, and avoid me without pity, and will not allow me any skill in my art? Know, then, that I could soon find means of curbing your spirit, and, holding the the amusements of this kind of life is gambling, of which the fragment in Schol. Horn. II. xxiii. 88, fragment 44. Bergk. speaks : " Dice are the vehement passio* and the conflict of Eros." t Fragm. in Hepha;st. p. 52. (22. Bergk.), explained by Julian Epist. IS p. 386. B. I Fragm. in Dio Chrysost. Or. II. p. 31, fir. 2. Bergk. § Horat. Ep. xiv. 9. sq. ^[ In Athen. xiii. p. 599. C. fr. 15. Bergk. That it does not refer to Sappho is proved by the dates of her lifetime, and of that of Anacreon.
 * Anacreon has a peculiar term to express this idea, viz. »/&» or auvrfiav. One of
 * Fragm. in Maxim. Tyr. viii. p. 96, fr. 42. Bergk.
 * In Heracliil, Allegor. Horn. p. 16, ed, Schow. fr, 79, Bergk,