Anonymous / 2008-09-22 00:00:00
The later is a copy of the earlier,
executed in a somewhat inferior manner. Even in the revival of poetry
under Justinian it is difficult to be sure how far the poetry was in
any real sense original, and how far it is parallel to the Latin
verses of Renaissance scholars. The vocabulary of these poets is
practically the same as that of Callimachus; but the vocabulary of
Callimachus too is practically the same as that of Simonides.
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[1] The first inscriptions of all were probably in hexameter: cf. Hdt.
v. 59.
[2] Horace, A. P., ll. 75-8, leaves the origin of elegiac verse in
obscurity. When he says it was first used for laments, he probably
follows the Alexandrian derivation of the word {elegos} from {e
legein}. The /voti sententia compos/ to which he says it became
extended is interpreted by the commentators as meaning amatory
poetry. If this was Horace's meaning he chose a most singular way
of expressing it.
[3] Mr. F. D. Allen's treatise /On Greek Versification in
Inscriptions/ (Boston, 1888) gives an account of the slight
changes in structure (caesura, etc.) between earlier and later
periods.
[4] Cf. infra, III. 2, VII., 4, X. 45, XII. 18, I. 30, IX. 23.
[5] From the Leominster MS. circ. A.D. 1307 (Percy Society, 1842).
III
The material out of which this selection has been made is principally
that immense mass of epigrams known as the Greek Anthology.
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