Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/214

192 192 hISTORY OF THE at this period, among the Dorians in particular, and were performed by the whole people, especially in Crete and Sparta, with such ardour and enthusiasm, that the demand for songs to be sung as an accompani- ment to them must have been very great. It is true that, in many places, even at the great festivals, people contented themselves with the old traditionary songs, consisting of a few simple verses in which the principal thoughts and fundamental tone of feeling were rather touched than worked out. Thus, at the festival of Dionysus, the women of Elis sang, instead of an elaborate dithyramb, the simple ditty, full of antique symbolic language : " Come, hero Dionysus, to thy holy sea- temple, accompanied by the Graces, and rushing on, oxen-hoofed ; holy ox ! holy ox* !" At Olympia too, long before the existence of Pindar's skilfully com- posed Epinikia, the little song ascribed to Archilochus t was sung in honour of the victors at the games. This consisted of two iambic verses ; " Hail, Hercules, victorious prince, all hail ! Thyself and Iolaus, warriors bold," with the burden " Tenella ! victorious!" to which a third verse, in praise of the victor of the moment, was probably added extempore. So also the three Spartan choruses, composed of old men, adults and boys, sang at the festivals the three iambic trimeters: " Once we were young, and strong as other youths. We are so still ; if you list, try our strength. We shall be stronger far than all of you £." But from the time that the Greeks had learned the charm of perfect lyric poetry, in which not merely a single chord of feeling was struck by the passing hand of the bard, but an entire melody of thoughts and sentiments was executed, their choruses did not persist in the mere repetition of verses like these ; songs were universally demanded, dis- tinguished for a more artificial metre, and for an ingenious combina- tion of ideas. Hence every considerable town, particularly in the Doric Peloponnesus, had its poet who devoted his whole life to the training and execution of choruses — in short to the business, so im- portant to the whole history of Greek poetry, of the Chorodidascalus. How many such choral poets there were, whose fame did not extend beyond their native place, may be gathered from the fact that Pindar, while celebrating a pugilist of /Egina, incidentally mentions two lyric poets of the same family, the Theandrids, Timocritus and Euphanes. Sparta also possessed seven lyric poets besides Alcman, in these early times §. There too, as in other Doric states, women, even in the time J Plutarch, Lycurg. 21. These triple choruses are called r^^oota. in Pollux IV. 107, where the establishment of them is attributed to Tyitaeus. § Their names are Spendon, Dionysyodotus, Xenodamus, (see Chap. xii. § 11.) Gitiadas, Artius, Eurytus, and Zarex.
 * Plutarch, Qusest. Grose. 36. + See above, p. 138. note f.