Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/476

454 454 HISTORY OF THE others, his poem could not possibly have gained the reputation which it enjoyed in ancient times. § 6. Here we must resume the thread of our history of Epic poetrij, which we dropped with Pisander, (chapter IX.) Epic poetry, however, did not slumber in the mean time, but found an utterance in Panyasis of Halicarnassus, the uncle of Herodotus, (fl. 01. 78, b.c. 468,*) in Chcerilus of Samos, a contemporary of Lysander, (about 01. 94, b.c. 404,) and in Antimacuus of Colophon, just mentioned, whose younger days coincide with the old age of Chcerilus : t these poets, however, were received by the public with an indifference fully equal to the general attention and admiration which the Homeric poems had excited. The Alexandrian school was the first to bring them into notice, and the critics of this school placed Panyasis and Antimachus, together with Pisander, in the first rank of epic poets. On this account also we have proportion- ally few fragments of these poets ; most of the citations from them are made onlv for the sake of learned illustrations; but little has come down to us, which could give us a conception of their general style and art. Pa iNYAsis comprised in his "Hercules" a great mass of mythical legends, and was chiefly occupied with painting in romantic colours the adventures of this hero in the most distant regions of the world. The description of the mighty feats of this hero, of his athletic strength and invincible courage, were no doubt relieved or softened down by pictures of a very different kind ; such as those, in which Panyasis gave life to a feast where Hercules was present by recounting the pleasant speeches of the valiant bancpieters, or painted in warm colours the thraldom of Hercules to Omphale which brought him to Lydia. In a great epic poem caUed Ionica, Panyasis took for his subject the early history of the Ionians in Asia Minor, and their wanderings and settlements under the guidance of Neleus and others of the descendants of Codrus. Choxrilus of Samos formed the grand plan of exalting in epic poetry the greatest or at least the most joyful event of Greek history, the expedition of Xerxes, king of Persia, against Greece. We could not blame this choice, even though we considered the historical epos, pro- perly so called, an unnatural production. But the Persian war was in its leading features an event of such simplicity and grandeur, — the despot of the East leading against the free republics of Greece, countless hosts of people who had no will of their own, — and besides this, the sub- put to death by Lygdamis, the tyrant of Halicarnassus, whom Herodotus afterwards expelled. f "When Lysander was in Samos as the conqueror of Athens, Chcerilus was then with him, and in the musical contests which Lysander established there, Anti- machus, son of Niceratus, from Heraclea, then a young man, was one of the defeated poets. Plutarch, Lysander, 18.
 * This date is given by Suidas ; somewhat later, (about 01. 82,) Panyasis was