(a) was used at first in threnodies and funeral lamentations, but by the 7th century its sphere was greatly extended and it was now employed to describe all sorts of personal reflections, especially of a didactic or moral nature. The metre is a distich consisting of a hexameter verse followed by the so-called pentameter, which is really a verse composed of two catalectic, dactylic trimeters. It was recited, not sung, and was very energetic and lively, being early used as a means of con veying personal reproach. Side by side and almost at the same time with the Elegiac was developed the Iambic, which was probably con fleeted with the worship of Demeter. It early acquired a satyric turn, to which its lively tripping metre especially adapted it. It was an entirely different type from the Elegiac, but became early associated with it, because it had many characteristics in common, and the two types were often cultivated by the same poet. Like the Elegiac, the Iambic also soon gave up musical accompaniment. Among the masters in this department may be men tioned Callinus (730 B.c.?) of Ephesus, who wrote martial elegies and was probably the first elegiac poet, though this honor is also claimed for Archilochus. Archilochus (700 B.c.) of Paros, who wrote some elegies, is mostly famed as the most illustrious wielder of iambic verse, which he is said to have invented and of which he is the earliest writer. Semonides (693 B.c.) of Amorgus, who has little originality, but is not without some elegance, is chiefly known by his satyric poem in iambic verse on women. Tyrtzus (650 B.c.), the fabled lame school master of Athens, like Callinus, wrote martial elegies. Mimnermus (630 B.c.) of Colophon, the sweet-voiced singer, was the first to use elegy for the expression of love. Solon (594 B.c.) of Athens, the soldier and patriot, wrote elegies of a martial and political nature. Theognis (544 B.c.) of Megara was a sharp and poignant writer of gnomic elegy. Phocylides (540 B.c.) of Miletus was another gnomic writer, and finally comes Hipponax (546 ac.) of Ephesus, best known as the inventor of the scazon, choliambic (or halting verse), which is an iambic trimeter that ends with a spondee, and thus produces a sort of shock, often humorous in effect. Here may also be men tioned the epigram, the literary form of which was the elegiac distich. It was cultivated by Archilochus to some extent, but the most dis tinguished writer of epigram was the lyric poet, Simonides of Ceos.
(b) Unlike the preceding, the melic type was musical throughout. It was especially adapted to religious chants and held its sway in every realm of human passion. It is highly valuable, not only from a literary but also from an historical standpoint. The lEolian type, which was not only monodic, but also choral, is much simpler, less ornate, less involved than the Dorian, which was generally choral. Alcaus (606 ac.) of Mitylene was a vigorous, graceful, passionate writer of songs of love, scholia, poli tics and some hymns. Sappho (611 ac.), also of Mitylene, though probably born at Eresos, the greatest of women poets, wrote love songs of the most passionate character, full of subtle charm and exquisite grace. She also wrote epithalamia. Both these poets used the highly colored Lesbian dialect and both were often imi tated by Horace. Closely allied to these in form and content, though differing from them in dia lect, was Anacreon (540 B.c.) of Teos, an Ionian city, who was a writer of love songs and hymns, and while not possessing the genius or passion of either Alczus or Sappho, yet wrote graceful verse, with an occasional vein of humorous satire. The poems called (Anacreontics) are
imitations of the Alexandrian Age, and are not altogether bad, some possessing considerable merit. The Dorian type, much more ornate and more highly involved in structure and metre than the Lesbian, dealt mostly with matters of religion and of public interests, taking as its subjects the mythical traditions of the Dorians, and was sung at festivals in honor of the gods and heroes or in commemoration of some ath letic victory or the founding of some city. The dialect is Dorian of an artistic literary type, and the form varied from the simple narrative to the highly artistic dialogue. The most import ant forms in the order of their development were the Perrin, a hymn of joyous thanlcsgiving to Apollo, the Hyporchema, also a hymn to Apollo, accompanied by dancing; the Parthe nion, a sort of processional song, sung by a chorus of young girls; the Dithyramb, in honor of Dionysus, of a wild and passionate nature, sung by a chorus encircling an altar; also march songs, marriage songs and such like. Thaletas (700 a.c.?) of Crete is mentioned as developing the Paran, and Hyporchema., the metre of which he brought from his native land to Sparta. Alcman (650 a.c.) of Sardis wrote hymns, parans, hyporchemata and scholia, and espeaally gave artistic form to the Parthenion. His poetry is easy, graceful and often tender. Arion (650 a.c.?) of Methymna is especially noted as the founder of the artistic dithyramb. Stesichorus (611 a.c.) of Hirnera in Sicily treated epic subjects in lyric form and is famous for adding the epode to the strophe and anti strophe, of choral song, whence he gets his name, his real name being Tisias. Ibycus (560 Lc.) of Rhegium in Italy, somewhat like Stesi chorus in form and content, wrote both hymns and love songs. But the great masters of choral lyric arose after the Persian wars, which had a tendency to unite the widely scattered Greeks into one people and brought into prominence Athens, which then became the literary centre of the known world. Simonides (556 a.c.) of Ceos, an Ionian, of keen observation and philosophic temperament, gave his genius to the cultivation of the Dorian lyric and achieved the highest fame. He was also distinguished in other departments of poetry, notably the elegy and the epigram, hymns to the gods, parans, dirges, odes of victory, etc. Simonides is also remarkable as being, so-to-speak, the first na tional poet, for he was an Ionian by birth, wrote in the Dorian dialect, and at Athens, the future world power. Next may be mentioned his nephew, Bacchylides (470 a.c.), of whom 20 poems practically complete and several long fragments were discovered in 1897, which give us a much higher opinion of this smooth and graceful poet Greatest of all the lyric poets was Pindar (521 Lc.) of Thebes, who was a contemporary of Bacchylides and contended with hun for prizes, but was by no means a rival, for Pindar is brilliant, lofty in diction and in thought, full of religious reverence, deeply in earnest, abounding in poetic imagery, of an independent genius, always grand. His extant works consist of 45 complete odes of victory, written in honor of the victors at the great national games, besides many fragments rep resenting almost every species of lyric composition.