Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/232

210 210 HISTORY OF THE of a votive tablet, written by himself*) 56 oxen and tripous in poetical contests ; and yet prizes of this kind could only be gained at public festivals, such as the festival of Bacchus at Athens. Simonides, ac- cording to his own testimony, conquered at this latter festival in Olymp. 75. 4. b. c. 476, with a cyclian chorus of 50 men. The muse ot Simonides was, however, far oftener in the pay of private men ; he was the first who sold his poems for money, according to the frequent re- proach of the ancients. Thus Socrates in Plato f says that Simonides was often forced to praise a tyrant or other powerful man, without being convinced of the justice of his praises. Among the poems which Simonides composed for public festivals, were hymns and prayers (rareu^"*) to various gods, peeans to Apollo, hyporchemes, dithyrambs, and parthenia. In the hyporchemes Simo- nides seemed to have excelled himself; so great a master was he of the art of painting, by apt rhythms and words, the acts which he wished to describe ; he says of himself that he knows how to combine the plastic movements' of the feet with the voice %. His dithyrambs were not, ac- cording to their original purpose, dedicated to Dionysus, but admitted subjects of the heroic mythology; thus a dithyramb of Simonides bore the title of Memnon §. This transfer to heroes, of poems properly be- longing to Dionysus will be considered more fully in connexion with the subject of tragedy. Moreover the odes just mentioned, which cele- brated those who fell at Thermopylae and in the sea-fights against the Persians, were doubtless intended to be performed at public festivals in honour of victories. Among the poems which Simonides composed for private persons, the Epinikia and Threnes are worthy of especial notice. At this period the Epinikia — songs which were performed at a feast in honour of a victor in public and sacred games, either on the scene of the conflict, or at his return home — first received the polish of art from the hands of the choral poets. At an earlier age, a few verses, like those of Ar- chilochus, had answered the same purpose. The Epinikia of Simonides and Pindar are nearly contemporaneous with the erection of statues in honour of victorious combatants, which first became common about Olymp. 60, and, especially in the time of the Persian war, employed the most eminent artists of the schools of iEgina and Sicyon. A ge- neral idea of the structure of the epinikia of Simonides may be formed from those of Pindar (of which a copious analysis will be found in the next chapter). In these odes, too, the celebration of mythical heroes (as of the Dioscuri in the epinikion of Scopas) was closely connected with the praise of the victor. General reflections and apophthegms were also applied to his peculiar circumstances. Thus in the same ode, the general maxim was stated, that the gods alone could be always J Plutarch, Sympos. ix. 1 5. 2. $ Strabo xv. p. 728. B.
 * Anthol. Palat. vi. 213. f Protag. p. 346. B.