against tyrants, and occasionally for the moral tendency of his writings, but admits that sometimes his muse is loose and wanton: it appears from some fragments preserved by Athenæus, that he wrote several poems or sonnets in praise of drinking; there is also a fragment in the martial style, describing the variety of armour, with which his house was adorned. Callimachus, Theocritus, Anacreon and Sappho, are to a certain degree known to us by their remains: Every branch of poetry, but the drama, was at this æra at its greatest perfection. NUMBER CXXV. THERE is a considerable fragment in Athenæus of a love-poem written by Hermesianax of Colophon to his mistress Leontium; the poet recommends his passion by telling her how love has triumphed over all the great geniuses in their turns, and begins with the instances of Orpheus and Musæus, and brings them down to Sophocles, Euripides, Pythagoras, and Socrates. This Hermesianax must have been a contemporary of Epicurus, forasmuch as Leontium was the mistress of that philosopher as well as of his disciple Metrodorus: it is plain therefore that the learned Gerard John Vossius did not advert to this circumstance, when he puts Hermesianax amongst the poets of a doubtful age. Leontium was an Athenian courtezan, no less celebrated for science than beauty, for she engaged in a philosophical controversy with Theophratus, of which Cicero takes notice [lib. 1. de Nat. Deor.] Pliny also records an anecdote of her being painted by Theodorus sitting in a studious attitude. This fragment may not improperly be called the amours of the Greek poets, and as it relates to many of whom we have been speaking, and is withal a very curious specimen of an author very little known even by name, I have inserted the following translation in the hope that it will not be unacceptable to my readers. Οιὴν μὲν φίλος γὸς ἀνήγαγεν Οἰάγροιο, &c. Athen. lib. xiii. SUCH was the nymph, whom Orpheus led, Th' undaunted minstrel smites the strings, Thus music charm'd the realms beneath, And beauty triumph'd over death. The bard, whom night's pale regent bore, Musæus, felt the sacred flame, And burnt for the fair Theban dame Antiope, whom mighty Love Made pregnant by imperial Jove; For Ceres, who the veil undrew, That screen'd her mysteries from his view, Propitious this kind truth reveal'd, That woman close besieg'd will yield. Old Hesiod too his native shade Love touch'd his harp, love tun'd his tongue, And love's put out religion's fire. Homer, of all past bards the prime, Whom Jove with wit sublimely blest, On whose parch'd sands no seasons smile, Mimnermus tun'd his am'rous lay, Soft was his lyre, and sweet his strains; Nanno his theme, and youth his guest. Antimachus with tender art Alcæus strung his sounding lyre, gracefully delivered and appositely addressed; in fine, that his merit consists in the middle style of writing.'-Talents of this sort probably recommended him to the unreserved applause of all, whom superiority of genius in another affects with envy and provokes to detraction. Many such, besides the grammarian Daphidas, were found to persecute the name of Homer with malevolence, whilst he rose superior to their attacks: the rhapsodists, whose vocation it was in public and private to entertain the company with their recitations, were so constantly employed in repeating Homer's poems preferably to all others, that in time they were universally called Homerists: Demetrius Phalereus at length introduced them into the theatres, aud made them chaunt the poems of his favourite author on the stage the poet Simonides, celebrated for his memory, repeated long passages of Homer, sitting in the public theatre on a seat erected for him on the stage for that purpose; Cassander, king of Macedonia, had the whole Iliad and Odyssey by heart, and was continually repeating, not in company only, but in his private hours to himself: Stesichorus also, the sublimest of all poets next to Homer, and his greatest imitator, was remarkably fond of chaunting forth passages in the Iliad and Odyssey; it is related also that he used frequently to repeat verses of Hesiod, Archilochus, Mimnermus, and Phocylides the Milesian, who is the supposed author of the poem entitled Parænesis yet extant. We are obliged to the grammarians for many scraps or fragments from the wrecks of authors, but in the case of Hesiod's Eoics meet with one remnant only preserved by Pausanias, and this relates to Iphigenia, who, by Hesiod's account, was by the favour of Diana reprieved from extinction and immortalized in the person of the goddess Hecate. As for the bards of the Orphean family, it is difficult to adjust their chronologies and descents; I have already enumerated five poets of the name of Orpheus, and said in general terms, that there were several of the name of Musæus; they may be thus described; viz. first, Musæus, son of Antiphemus and disciple of Orpheus, styled an epic poet; he wrote a long poem of four thousand verses, containing precepts, addressed to his son Eumolpus, and thence entitled The Eumolpiad; he wrote a hymn to Ceres, a poem on the cure of diseases, and published certain prophetic verses, though his title to these has been brought into dispute by the artifices of one Onomacritus, a plagiarist and pretended diviner in the time of Hipparchus, who put off these verses of Musæus as his own. The second Musæus was grandson of the first and son of Eumolpus; various poems are given to this Musæus, particularly The Theogony, The Sphere, The Mysteries of Initiation and Lustration, The Titans, &c. The third Musæus, a Theban, was son of Thamyris and grandson of Philammon; he flourished about the time of the Trojan war: his father Thamyris is recorded by Homer. And Dorion fam'd for Thamyris' disgrace, POPE. IL. 2. |