Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/408

386 386 HISTORY OF THE have had a good deal of his uncle's manner; his tetralogy, the Pan- dionis, probably developed the destinies of Proene and Philomela in a connected series of dramas quite according to the iEschylean model, and the hardness and harshness* with which he is reproached may have followed naturally from his imitation of the style of the old tragedy. Morsimus, the son of Philocles, seems to have done but little honour to the family ; but after the Peloponnesian war the vEschyleans gained new lustre from Astydamas, who brought out 240 pieces and gained fifteen victories. From these numbers we see that Astydamas in his time supplied the Athenian public with new tetralogies almost every year at the Lensea and great Dionysia, and that, on an average, he gained the prize once every four contests. f With regard to the family of Sophocles, Iophon was an active and popular tragedian in his father's life-time, and Aristophanes considers him as the only support of the tragic stage after the death of the two great poets. We do not, however, know how a later age answered the comedian's doubtful question, whether Iophon would be able to do as much by himself now that he was deprived of the benefit of his father's counsel and guidance. Some years later the younger Sophocles, the grandson of the great poet, came forward, at first with the legacy of unpublished dramas which his grandfather had left him, and soon after with plays of his own. As he gained the prize twelve times, he must have been one of the most prolific poets of the day; he was un- doubtedly the most considerable rival of the .Eschylean Astydamas. A younger Euripides also gained some reputation by the side of these descendants of the two other tragedians. He stands on the same footing in relation to his uncle as Euphorion to iEschylus, and the younger Sophocles to his grandfather ; he first brought out plays by his renowned kinsman, and then tried the success of his own productions. § G. By the side of these successors of the great tragedians others from time to time made their appearance, and in them we may see more distinct traces of those tendencies of the age, which were not without their influence on the others. In them tragic poetry appears no longer as independent and as following its own object and its own thets 'AXpluv and XoXv, " salt-pickle'' and " gall." f He was the first of the family of /Eschylns who was honoured by the Athenians With a statue of bronze Q Atr. as an instance of the unjust distribui ion of distinctions. He is not quite right, however; for Astydamas lived at the time, when the use of honorary statues fiist came into vogue. The statues of the older poets, which were shown at Athens at a later period, were erected subsequently and by way of supplement. The passage quoted above has been wrongly suspected and needlessly altered.
 * Uty.^'ta., Schol. Aristoph. Av. ; Suidas v. GiXoxXift. He gained from this the epi-