Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/218

196 196 HISTORY OF THE kind, called an epode, did not occur in Alcman. He made strophes of the same measure succeed each other in an indefinite number, like the iEolic lyric poets : there were, however, odes of his, consisting of fourteen strophes, with an alteration (peraj3o{]) in the metre after the seventh * ; which was of course accompanied with a marked change in the ideas and in the whole tone of the poem. It ought also to be mentioned that the Laconic metre, a kind of anapaestic verse, used as a march (afijiariipioy), which the Spartan troops sang as they advanced to attack the enemy, is attributed to Alcman t ; whence it may be conjectured that Alcman imitated Tyr- taeus, and composed war-songs similar to his, cons'sting not of strophes, but of a repetition of the same sort of verse. The authority for such a supposition is, however, slight. There is not a trace extant of any marches composed by Alcman, nor is there any similarity between their form and character and any of his poetry with which we are acquainted. It is true that Alcman frequently employed the anapaestic metre, but not in the same way as Tyrtaeus j, and never unconnected with other rhythms. Thus Tyrtasus, who was Alcman's predecessor by one gene- ration, and whom we have already described as an elegiac poet, appears to have been the only notable composer of Embateria. These were sung to the flute in the Castorean measure by the whole army ; and, as is proved by a few extant verses, contained simple, but vigorous and manly exhortations to bravery. The measure in which they were written was also called the Messenian, because the second Messenian war had given occasion to the composition of war-songs of peculiar force and fervour. § 3. Alcman is generally regarded as the poet who successfully over- came the difficulties presented by the rough and intractable dialect of Sparta, and invested it with a certain grace. And, doubtlers, inde- pendent of their general Doric form, many Spartan idioms are found in his poems §, though by no means all the peculiarities of that dialect ||. Alcman's language, therefore, agrees with the other poetical dialects of Greece, in not representing a popular dialect in its genuine state, but in elevating and refining it by an admixture with the language of epic poetry, which may be regarded as the mother and nurse of every variety of poetry among the Greeks. We may also observe that this tinge of popular Laconian idioms is by no means equally strong in all the varieties of Alcman's poetry ; they f The metrical scholia to Eurip. Hec. 59. I According to the La'in metrical writers, Servius and Marins Victorinu*, the dimeter hypercatalectos, the trimeter catalecticus, and the tetrameter, hrachycata- lectos were called Alcmanica metra. The embateria were partly in the dimeter catalecticus, partly in the tetrameter catalecticus. § As a- for 6 (<r«XXsv for OaXXiv, &c.), th3 rough termination « in ^axa^j, risg/jjgj.
 * Hephaest. p. 134. ed. Gaisford.
 * For example, not 'iAZa, Tip'oko^, axzog (for urxo;). Sec.